Meet the New Business Advisors to the Business Law Section

Jill Pryor was nominated by President Barack Obama to be a Circuit Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit and unanimously confirmed by the Senate on September 8, 2014.  Before joining the Court, she was a partner with Atlanta law firm of Bondurant, Mixson & Elmore, where she practiced business litigation in the state and federal trial and appellate courts for 25 years.  Before entering private practice, Judge Pryor served as a law clerk to the Honorable J.L. Edmondson of the Eleventh Circuit.   

A former President of the Georgia Association for Women Lawyers and past Chair of the State Bar of Georgia’s Appellate Practice Section, Judge Pryor currently serves on the State Bar of Georgia’s Board of Governors, chairs its Standing Committee on Access to Justice, and is a member of the American Law Institute.  She is a graduate of Yale Law School and the College of William and Mary.

The Honorable Peter M. Reyes, Jr. is a judge on the Minnesota Court of Appeals. He began his career as a judicial law clerk for the Honorable Salvador M. Rosas then joined Robins Kaplan as an associate in the Intellectual Property (IP) Litigation Department. He subsequently worked as a senior IP lawyer at Cargill, Incorporated and as a partner at Barnes & Thornburg LLP.

Judge Reyes is an active member of a number of local, state, and national bar associations and nonprofit organizations. He served as president of the Minnesota Hispanic Bar Association (MHBA) from 2000-2003, on the Board of Trustees for William Mitchell College of Law from 2005-2014, and national president of the Hispanic National Bar Association (HNBA) from 2012-2013. Judge Reyes is active in the American Bar Association (ABA) as a member of the House of Delegates, the ABA Judicial Division, Section of IP Law, and TIPS, among others. He served on the ABA Commission on Hispanic Legal Rights and Responsibilities and the ABA Council for Diversity in the Educational Pipeline. He will serve on the Commission on Women in the Legal Profession beginning in 2019. Judge Reyes is an American Bar Foundation (ABF) Fellow and serves on the ABF Fellows Research Advisory Council. He currently serves on the Executive Council for the Minnesota Historical Society.

Among his recognitions, Minnesota Lawyer named Judge Reyes as one of the “Top Ten Minnesota Attorneys of the Year” in 2001, one of the “Attorneys of the Year” in 2012, 2016, and 2017, and as a recipient of the inaugural “Diversity & Inclusion Award” in 2017. In 2012 and 2013, Poder Magazine named him as one of the 100 Most Influential Hispanics in America. Judge Reyes received the Ohtli Award in 2016, the highest award given out by the Mexican government to a non-Mexican citizen. He received the “HNBA Latino Judge of the Year Award” in 2018. And in 2019, Judge Reyes received the “MHBA Courage in Leadership Award” and the ABA 2019 “Spirit of Excellence Award.”

Judge Reyes received his undergraduate degree in Chemistry from the University of St. Thomas and his law degree from Mitchell-Hamline College of Law, graduating with Honors.