Stephen Breyer, born in 1938, associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (1994- ). President Bill Clinton nominated Breyer to replace Justice Harry Blackmun when Blackmun retired in 1994.

Stephen Gerald Breyer was born in San Francisco and graduated from Stanford University in 1958. He also studied politics, economics, and philosophy as a Marshall Scholar at the University of Oxford in England. In 1964 he earned a law degree from Harvard Law School then spent a year working as a clerk for Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg.

Breyer began teaching law at Harvard University in 1967. He served as an assistant special prosecutor in 1973 for the Justice Department during the Watergate scandal. In 1974 Breyer became special counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee where he worked on deregulating the airline industry. In 1979 he became the committee's chief counsel, and in the following year President Jimmy Carter appointed Breyer to the U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston, Massachusetts. In 1990 Breyer became the chief judge. He earned a reputation as a pragmatist on cases involving business regulation, not deciding issues based on strictly conservative or liberal ideology. He supported government deregulation of business and enforcement of strong antitrust laws, but favored regulations that set environmental, health, and safety protections. Breyer's nonideological approach, which earned him the support of both Democrats and Republicans, paved the way for an easy confirmation by the U.S. Senate to the Supreme Court in 1994.