Bryan Dearinger joined the UO in September 2014.  Prior to his arrival, he worked exclusively in federal courts for nearly ten years.  This included serving as a trial attorney in the civil division at the US 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, Freedom of Information Act cases, and the enforcement of various federal statutory and regulatory schemes. In addition, before entering the Department of Justice through the Attorney General’s Honors Program, Bryan served for three years as a federal judicial law clerk for judges in US district courts in Seattle, Washington, and Cheyenne, Wyoming. Prior to that, Bryan worked for Legal Aid Services of Oregon in Portland, Oregon.

Bryan holds a BA from the University of Portland and a JD from Drake University, where he was Order of the Coif, the Edwin Earle Ferguson Public Service Scholar, and Editor in Chief of the Drake Law Review.  Bryan has litigated in over a dozen federal courts across the country and has also authored articles published in the Oregon Law Review and the St. John’s Law Review.  He is an adjunct professor at the University of Oregon School of Law.  

Bryan serves as a board member for the Oregon Federal Bar Association (FBA) and helps run the FBA's Free Federal Law Clinic as one of two volunteer Attorney Ambassadors.  The clinic serves persons without financial or legal resources, primarily assisting unrepresented (pro se) litigants with civil matters filed in federal court in Oregon.

In December 2018, the federal district judges in Oregon selected Bryan as a Ninth Circuit Lawyer Representative for the District of Oregon (2019 - 2022 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.

Pronouns: he/him/his

Assistant:
Kelly Fondren
541-346-3463

Jessie joined the Office of the General Counsel as Assistant General Counsel in August 2023.  Before becoming a Duck, Jessie was a shareholder at the law firm of Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt in Portland where she represented clients ranging from individuals to publicly held corporations to administrative agencies in affirmative and defense civil litigation, including on matters involving commercial disputes and business torts, environmental issues, and various administrative procedures, including public records. In addition to her traditional private-sector work, Jessie dedicated a substantial portion of her practice at Schwabe to pro bono representations of marginalized communities and incarcerated people in civil litigation, post-conviction review, and parole hearings.

Jessie holds a BA from California State University Long Beach and a JD from Lewis & Clark Law School, where she graduated summa cum laude and was inducted in the Cornelius Honor Society. During law school, Jessie served as the Notes and Comments Editor for the Lewis & Clark Law Review, worked as a judicial extern to the Honorable Magistrate Judge John V. Acosta in the United States District Court for the District of Oregon and as a law clerk for the Federal Public Defender for the District of Oregon, and volunteered her time for Legal Aid Services of Oregon in Portland.

Jessie currently serves as a board member for the Understanding Racism Foundation and on the advisory committee for the Oregon Campaign for Equal Justice. She has won numerous awards, including the Michael E. Haglund Young Lawyer Pro Bono Award from the Multnomah Bar Association, the Oregon State Bar’s Oregon New Lawyers Division Public Service Award, and the Associate Award from the Oregon Campaign for Equal Justice, and she has been recognized by Best Lawyers in America as “One to Watch” and by Superlawyers as a “Rising Star” for multiple years in a row.

Pronouns: she/her/hers

Assistant:
Kelly Fondren
541-346-3463