Bryan Dearinger

Bryan Dearinger is Associate General Counsel for the University of Oregon. He joined UO in September 2014.  His primary areas of practice in the General Counsel’s Office are Privacy, Constitutional Law, Federal Agency Practice, Emergency Management, Government Ethics, Subpoenas and Discovery, Data Security, Athletics, Police & Law Enforcement, Public Records, Preservation and E-discovery.

Prior to his arrival at UO, Bryan was a trial attorney in the Civil Division at the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., where he represented the United States, the President of the United States, federal agencies, and government officials in affirmative and defensive civil litigation, including constitutional litigation, Administrative Procedure Act litigation, civil rights cases, national security litigation, privacy litigation, and the enforcement of various federal statutory and regulatory schemes.  His work included, for example, litigation of First Amendment speech and religion cases, litigation on behalf of agencies as wide ranging as the EPA, FBI, U.S. Department of Agriculture and Department of Transportation, handling U.S. Territory and Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act litigation, and litigating national security cases—including, for example, representing the United States in the various statutory and constitutional challenges to the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs in the wake of the disclosures by Edward Snowden.  Before entering the DOJ through the Attorney General’s Honors Program, Bryan served for three years as a judicial law clerk for federal judges in Seattle, Washington, and Cheyenne, Wyoming.  While in law school, Bryan worked for Legal Aid Services of Oregon in Portland, Oregon.

Bryan has litigated in over a dozen federal district courts across the country and has also authored articles published in the Oregon Law Review and the St. John’s Law Review.

In December 2018, the judges of the United States District Court in Oregon selected Bryan as a Ninth Circuit Lawyer Representative for the District of Oregon (2019-2021 term).  Lawyer representatives are chosen by federal judges in each of the Ninth Circuit’s fifteen districts.  In this role, Bryan works closely with federal judges and the federal bar to improve the administration of justice in the Circuit.  In April 2020, Bryan was selected by Chief Judge Marco Hernandez to serve as Co-Chair of the Ninth Circuit Lawyer Representatives for the 2020-2021 term.