Stephen Breyer, American lawyer and judge
Stephen Gerald Breyer ( BRY-ər; born August 15, 1938) is an American lawyer and jurist who has served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States since 1994. He was nominated by President Bill Clinton, and replaced retiring justice Harry Blackmun. Breyer is generally associated with the liberal wing of the Court.After attending Stanford University, Breyer attended the University of Oxford as a Marshall Scholar and graduated from Harvard Law School in 1964. After a clerkship with Associate Justice Arthur Goldberg in 1964–65, Breyer was a law professor and lecturer at Harvard Law School from 1967 until 1980. He specialized in administrative law, writing textbooks that remain in use today. He held other prominent positions before being nominated to the Supreme Court, including special assistant to the United States Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust and assistant special prosecutor on the Watergate Special Prosecution Force in 1973. He also served on the First Circuit Court of Appeals from 1980 to 1994.
In his 2005 book Active Liberty, Breyer made his first attempt to systematically communicate his views on legal theory, arguing that the judiciary should seek to resolve issues in a manner that encourages popular participation in governmental decisions.
On January 26, 2022, American news outlets reported that Breyer intended to retire from the Supreme Court at the end of the term. On January 27, Breyer and President Joe Biden officially announced Breyer's pending retirement at the White House. On February 25, 2022, Biden nominated Breyer's former law clerk, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, to succeed him, who would become the first female African American justice if confirmed.