Judge Jeffrey Bryan is expected to become the first Latino on the federal bench in Minnesota

Judge Jeffrey Bryan, who was appointed to the Minnesota Court of Appeals in 2019, is expected to be nominated to the federal bench and become the state's first Latino federal judge, sources told the Star Tribune on Friday.

Bryan is undergoing a routine background check, the sources said, which typically includes a rigorous review by the FBI and which he is expected to pass. Once that happens, President Joe Biden would formally nominate him, likely in July, the sources said.

"Judge Bryan is an exceptional selection for that position," said Chief Judge Leonardo Castro of the Ramsey County District Court, where Bryan once served, when told of the expected nomination.

"I am particularly very proud that the president has decided to appoint the first Latino to the federal bench in Minnesota. It's an historic moment."

Bryan had no comment Friday, said Kyle Christopherson, a spokesman with the Minnesota Court Information Office.

After U.S. District Judge John Tunheim, who had been chief federal judge in Minneapolis, announced last winter that he would assume senior status, Minnesota U.S. Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith formed a six-member judicial selection committee to help them recommend possible successors to Biden.

Based on those recommendations, Klobuchar and Smith submitted three names to the White House, which settled on Bryan.

"We have no comment at this time but are eager to fill this judicial appointment," a spokesperson for Klobuchar said Friday.

Shea Necheles, Smith's press secretary, said the senator "is eager to see the judicial vacancy filled as soon as possible with someone who upholds our nation's highest value of equal justice under law."

Klobuchar sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which will hold a confirmation hearing sometime after the White House announcement.

Some of Biden's judicial nominations were stalled this spring when another committee member, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., could not participate because of illness and Republicans refused to accept another Democrat in her place.

Of the 26 judges on the federal bench in Minnesota, six are people of color. They are: district judges Michael Davis, Wilhelmina Wright and Jerry Blackwell, who are Black; magistrate judges Tony Lueng, who is Asian, and Leo Brisbois, who is Native American; and Bankruptcy Judge Kesha Tanabe, who is Asian.

A native of El Paso, Texas, Bryan was inspired to pursue law when his mother, a high school English teacher of Mexican descent, read him the book "To Kill a Mockingbird," according to a 2017 article in the Minnesota Lawyer newspaper.

"It made me realize that [law] was a career possibility," Bryan said in the article. "I wanted to be a lawyer … to help people in crisis and make a difference in their lives. That is something that has carried through in law school and past law school and into today."

Bryan graduated with honors from the University of Texas and then Yale Law School. He was a law clerk for U.S. District Judge Paul A. Magnuson before working as an associate attorney at the Robins, Kaplan, Miller and Ciresi law firm in Minneapolis, where he specialized in civil litigation.

Bryan was an assistant U.S. attorney for six years, prosecuting white-collar defendants, gang members, drug trafficking organizations and career criminals. In 2013, he was named to fill a vacancy on the Ramsey County District Court by Gov. Mark Dayton, and won election to the post in 2014. While a judge there, he co-chaired the Ramsey County Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative.

When Gov. Tim Walz named Bryan to the Court of Appeals four years ago, he cited his experience in managing complex cases "with compassion." Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan said at the time that Bryan had committed his career to pursuing social justice in the court and the community.

Bryan was twice among four finalists for openings on the Minnesota Supreme Court, first in 2018 and again in 2020.

He has been active in several organizations, including the Macalester-Groveland Community Council in St. Paul, the Minnesota Urban Debate League board, Habitat for Humanity and the Minnesota Task Force on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women.

Bryan has been married for 20 years to Liz Kramer, whom he met at Yale. She is solicitor general in Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison's office and co-founder of the appeals self-help clinic at the Minnesota Judicial Center. In 2016, she was named Minnesota Lawyer's Attorney of the Year.

Castro, the first Latino chief judge in Ramsey County's history, said Bryan has worked hard in the Minnesota Hispanic Bar Association to encourage Latino lawyers and attorneys of color to apply for judicial openings, and to help them with the application process and mock interviews.

Latinos have been historically underrepresented among judicial officers in Minnesota, Castro said, but that has begun to change in the past decade. He said there are now about 15 Latino judges in Minnesota, which counted nearly 308,000 Latinos in the 2020 census.

Magnuson, now a senior judge, applauded the prospect of Bryan's elevation to the federal bench.

"It is always a thrill when a former law clerk is nominated to join the District Court," he said in a statement. "Judge Bryan will be an outstanding federal judge."