Jeffrey Bryan, Judge 2019-2023

Jeffrey Bryan is the first Latino judge on the Minnesota Federal District Bench

Jeffrey Marc Bryan was born at Fort Bragg in North Carolina to Phoebe Ordoñez Bode and Dr. Gerald L. Bryan. He grew up in El Paso, Texas, attended the University of Texas at Austin, and graduated summa cum laude in 1998. He was briefly a substitute teacher before moving on to Yale Law School where he graduated in 2002. He met his wife, Liz Kramer, a Minnesotan and currently the Solicitor General, at Yale. They married and moved to Minnesota in 2002. He clerked for U.S. District Judge Paul A. Magnuson from 2002-2003 before working as an associate at Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi. 

He left the firm to work as an assistant U.S. Attorney for six years before Governor Mark Dayton appointed him to the Ramsey County District bench in 2013. During his time in the district court, he co-chaired the Ramsey County Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative. He was also a member of the Minnesota Hispanic Bar Association.

In 2019, he was appointed to the Minnesota Court of Appeals by Governor Tim Walz and was elected in 2022. In 2023, he was recommended to President Biden to fill a space on the Federal District Bench and was confirmed on November 28, 2023. He was sworn in on December 1, 2023 and became the first Latino federal judge in Minnesota.