Biography
James O. Browning is a United States District Court Judge for the District of New Mexico. President George W. Bush appointed Judge Browning in August of 2003.
Judge Browning graduated magna cum laude from Yale University, and received his Juris Doctorate degree from the University of Virginia School of Law, where he was Editor-in-Chief of the Virginia Law Review and a member of the Order of the Coif. He received the Margaret G. Hyde prize for being the outstanding member of his class. Following law school, Judge Browning served as law clerk to the late Collins J. Seitz, Chief Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (1981-1982) and to the late Lewis F. Powell, Jr., Associate Justice, Supreme Court of the United States (1982-1983). After his clerkships, he returned to New Mexico where he served as a shareholder and director at one of New Mexico’s oldest and largest firms before starting his own firm, now known as Peifer, Hanson & Mullins, in 1990.
From 1987 to 1988, Judge Browning was Deputy Attorney General of the State of New Mexico. He served as Chairman of the New Mexico Sentencing Guidelines Commission. Judge Browning is currently a director of the Christian Scholarship Foundation and is a former Trustee member of the Board of Trustees for Lubbock Christian University. Judge Browning has been an Adjunct Professor of the University of New Mexico School of Law teaching Church and State and is also a lecturer and moot court participant at the law school and elsewhere.
In 2003, Pepperdine University bestowed on Judge Browning an honorary Doctor of Laws degree, and in 2013, Lubbock Christian University bestowed an honorary Doctor of Laws degree upon him.
Chief Justice Roberts appointed Judge Browning to two terms with the Judicial Conference Committee on the Administration of the Bankruptcy System; he served on the Judgeships Subcommittee and one of the Committee’s cost containment small groups, which focused on, among other things, staffing, pay, and salary progression. In February 2011, the Chief Justice appointed Judge Browning to the Dodd-Frank Study Working Group, which produced the Administrative Office of the Court’s report required under Dodd-Frank. Judge Browning served as chairman of that working group in 2012-2013. Judge Browning recently served as the United States District Court for the District of New Mexico’s representative on the Tenth Circuit’s Judicial Council, where he served on the Magistrate Committee. In June 2016, the Chief John Roberts appointed Judge Browning to serve on the Judicial Conference Committee on Codes of Conduct. The New Mexico Chapter of the American Board of Trial Advocates named Judge Browning the 2009 and 2013 Outstanding Federal Jurist. Judge Browning was the Albuquerque Bar Association’s 2011 Outstanding Judge.
Judge Browning has been married to his wife, Jan, for forty years, and they have three adult children. They also have three grandchildren.