Joseph N. Giamboi (1925-2018) was a New York State Supreme Court justice for Bronx County. Among the first founders of the Columbian Lawyers Association of New York, he chaired the National Italian-American Bar Association (NIABA) – the national association of lawyers of Italian origin working in the U.S.A. – and was part of the Council of the Magna Grecia International Association, chaired by President Nino Foti.

Giamboi lived a full and distinguished life of public service, serving in the Bronx as a fair judge, who made people happy with his great attitude and his red Cadillac.

He was the son of two Italian immigrants, Giuseppina Calogero and Nicola Giamboi, originally from Messina and Giarre, in the province of Catania, respectively. His father left Italy at the age of seventeen to emigrate to the United States. After becoming an American citizen, he was drafted into the army and sent to the front during the First World War. After the war, he managed to set up a construction company, while his mother took care of the house and their children.

Giamboi graduated from New York University and attended New York Law School before being admitted to the New York State Bar in 1955.

In 1982, Richard Caccioppo, a Los Angeles attorney, began making nationwide contacts with leaders of the Italian American State and Regional Law Society of Jurists. Among the societies that expressed interest in organizing an Italian American national legal society were the Italian American Lawyers of Los Angeles, the Justinian Society of Lawyers of Chicago, the Justinian Law Society of Massachusetts, the Justinian Society of Philadelphia, the Columbian Lawyers Association of New York, and the Michigan Italian American Bar Association.

The following year, Giamboi attended the inaugural meeting of NIABA, serving as its president from 1987 to 1989.

“When he showed up at the convention his slogan was ‘Atta-boy Giamboi’

More than 25 years later, the Association continued to thrive and grow in influence thanks in large part to a group of Italian American legal professionals, including Giamboi, with a growing number of interests in ensuring the continued presence and influence of the Italian American legal community.

With over forty-five years of experience as a legal professional, he led the Giamboi, Reiss & Squitieri law firm overseeing a wide variety of cases, one of which included representing several companies involved in litigation. He practiced in the U.S. districts of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida, California, Colorado, Washington, D.C., Alabama, and Tennessee, until 1994, before beginning that year as a Supreme Court Justice until 2002.

With extensive legal experience, from the time of his retirement, Judge Giamboi was also a mediator and arbitrator at the National Arbitration and Mediation (NAM) specializing in construction, investment and securities, tort and labour law cases.

He was administrative assistant to Congressman Paul Fino and to Senators Perricone, Pisani, Velella and Calandra; member of the New York State Board of Elections; he was admitted to U.S. District Courts—in both the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York—to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th and 9th Circuits, and to the Washington, D.C. Bar Association.

In 1997, Judge Giamboi was presented with the Charles A. Rapallo Award from the Columbian Lawyers Association for the First Judicial Department of New York State. The award was named after the late Charles A. Rapallo, the first Italian-American judge appointed to the New York Court of Appeals and who served from 1870 to 1887. Recipients of the Rapallo Award also included U.S. Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito, former Governor Mario Cuomo, and former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.

Giamboi managed to balance his burdensome institutional role with his constant and multifaceted commitment to various associations engaged in the social and cultural spheres. He was also a member of the Knights of Columbus, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the American Legion, and various institutions that bring together all Italian Americans in the State of New York, such as the American of Italian Descendants, the Sons of Italy, and the Italian American Coalition.