Steven Colloton

Steven Michael Colloton (born January 9, 1963) is a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit since 2003. He became chief judge in March 2024.

Early life and education
Colloton was born in Iowa City, Iowa. He is the son of John W. Colloton, best known for his service as director and CEO for the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics from 1971 to 1993. Colloton is also the brother of Ann Colloton. Steven attended Iowa City West High School.

Colloton earned a Bachelor of Arts degree, summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, from Princeton University in 1985 and a Juris Doctor from Yale Law School in 1988. At Princeton, Colloton was a member of the Ivy Club, then an all-male eating club. While at Yale, Colloton won the Potter Stewart Prize in moot court. He was also an articles editor of the Yale Law Journal. He published a note defending single-sex student organizations, and in particular Princeton eating clubs like the Ivy Club, in the Yale Law & Policy Review. Over the summers at Yale, he worked at Bell, Boyd, & Lloyd, now part of K&L Gates, in Chicago, at Covington & Burling in Washington, D.C., and for Judge Edward R. Becker.

Career
Colloton was a law clerk for Judge Laurence Silberman of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 1988 to 1989 and for Chief Justice William Rehnquist of the United States Supreme Court from 1989 to 1990.

Colloton served as a special assistant to the attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel within the United States Justice Department from 1990 to 1991. He was an Assistant United States Attorney in the Northern District of Iowa in Cedar Rapids from 1991 to 1999. From 1995 to 1996 he was an associate independent counsel in the Office of Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr. He was a partner at Belin McCormick, a law firm in Des Moines, from 1999 to 2001 and served as an adjunct lecturer at the University of Iowa College of Law in 2000. In 2000, Colloton worked for George W. Bush's presidential campaign in Iowa. After Bush's election in 2000, Colloton was appointed United States Attorney for the Southern District of Iowa and served until 2003.

Federal judicial service
Colloton was nominated to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit by President George W. Bush on February 12, 2003, to a seat vacated by David R. Hansen. His nomination was supported by both Chuck Grassley and Tom Harkin. He was confirmed nearly seven months later by the Senate on September 4, 2003 by a 94–1 vote. He received his commission on September 10, 2003. He became chief judge on March 11, 2024. He was on President Donald Trump's list of potential Supreme Court candidates.

In February 2017, Colloton vacated the enhanced sentences imposed upon members of the Native Mob, finding that Minnesota's definition of burglary was not a violent felony under the Armed Career Criminal Act.