Joseph Koch
Joseph Koch (September 28, 1843 – August 28, 1902) was a Jewish-American lawyer, judge, and politician from New York. Life Koch was born on September 28, 1843, in New York City, New York, the son of German immigrants Samuel Koch and Theresa Engelhard. Koch graduated from the College of the City of New York in 1862. During the American Civil War, he served in the Judge Advocate General's Department of the Army with the rank of major from August 1862 until his honorable discharge in May 1863. He then worked as an assistant teacher at Grammar School No. 36 in New York City, attended law lectures with Professor Theodore William Dwight at Columbia University, and studied law with Richard H. Huntley and Abram J. Dittenhoefer. He graduated from Columbia Law School with an LL.B. in 1865. He was admitted to the bar later that year, after which he sailed to Europe and spent a year at Heidelberg University. He returned to New York City in 1867 and began practicing law there. He was offered the Democratic nomination for the New York State Assembly that year. He declined, and was instead appointed Law Clerk of the New York Supreme Court, followed