William Bryson has been selected to receive the prestigious 2026 American Inns of Court Professionalism Award for the Federal Circuit. Bryson is a senior judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. He will receive the award at a special awards ceremony in Washington, DC, in May.

“Judge Bryson was a distinguished lawyer before he ever arrived at the Federal Circuit,” writes Judge Alan D. Lourie of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, who nominated Bryson for the award. During his career at the U.S. Department of Justice, Bryson focused on criminal law. His roles included acting associate attorney general, deputy solicitor and deputy solicitor general, special counsel to the Criminal Division’s Organized Crime and Racketeering Section, and chief of the criminal appellate section. In an article about Bryson’s work at the Department of Justice, the New York Times called him a “legal eagle’s legal eagle.”

In 1994, President Bill Clinton nominated Bryson as a circuit judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. This new role meant a shift in focus from criminal law to patent law and other new areas, notes Lourie. Bryson “quickly mastered the law, and he became highly skilled in deciphering details of chemistry, electronics, and mechanics as those fields presented themselves in our cases,” Lourie writes, adding that Bryson also excelled in the other types of cases the Federal Circuit hears, including international trade, claims against the government, veterans’ benefits, and government employee claims. “Whatever the field, his skill in analyzing appeals and expressing the results in opinions with clear reasoning has been outstanding.”

Bryson did not slow down upon taking senior status in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in 2013. Instead of decreasing his case load, as most senior judges do, Bryson increased his load by becoming a district judge in Texas and Delaware. He also served as a judge on the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review and was the presiding judge of that court from 2013 to 2018.

Bryson earned a magna cum laude undergraduate degree from Harvard University in 1969 and a legal degree from The University of Texas School of Law in 1973. He clerked for Judge Henry Friendly of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, then for Justice Thurgood Marshall of the Supreme Court of the United States.

The American Inns of Court, headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia, inspires the legal community to advance the rule of law by achieving the highest level of professionalism through example, education, and mentoring. The organization’s membership includes nearly 30,000 federal, state, and local judges; lawyers; law professors; and law students in 350 chapters nationwide. More information is available at www.innsofcourt.org.

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Judge William C. Bryson selected to receive prestigious 2026 American Inns of Court Professionalism Award for the Federal Circuit.