Mary Beck Briscoe at a glance
- Current role
- U.S. Circuit Judge
- Court
- U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
- Jurisdiction
- National federal courts · Federal
- Judicial service
- May 26, 1995–present
Mary Beck Briscoe
U.S. Circuit Judge · U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
Available research
Biography
Professional career
- 1973–1974: Legal researcher, then attorney-examiner for the U.S. Interstate Commerce Commission.
- 1974–1984: Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Kansas, later Supervising Attorney in Topeka — the first woman in that role.
- 1984–1995: Judge on the Kansas Court of Appeals, appointed by Governor John W. Carlin; held the role of Chief Judge from 1990 to 1995.
- 2010–2015: Chief Judge of the Tenth Circuit.
- Since 2021: Senior Judge.
- 1995–2021: Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, appointed by President Bill Clinton on March 14, 1995, confirmed by Senate voice vote on May 25, 1995.
- chief judge, 1990-1995
- Judge, Kansas Court of Appeals, 1984-1995
- Assistant U.S. attorney, District of Kansas, 1974-1984
- Attorney-examiner, Financial Division, U.S. Interstate Commerce Commission, 1973-1974
- Legal researcher, 1973-present
Judicial service
- Judge, Court of Appeals of Kansas, 1984-1995
- Judge, Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, 1995-present
- Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
- Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
- Senior Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
- On the Tenth Circuit, Briscoe authored several published opinions, including United States v. McGinty (610 F.3d 1242, 2010), one of her most-cited decisions. In recent years, she has sat on panels in cases such as United States v. Tao (2024) and FTC v. Elite IT Partners (2023).
- Briscoe was the first woman appointed to the Kansas Court of Appeals and co-chaired the Kansas Bar Association’s Gender Bias Task Force in the 1980s. She has spoken about gender discrimination in her career, including being denied a management training program by Georgia Pacific Paper, which motivated her legal career. She also emphasized merit selection for judges and opposed a proposed constitutional amendment to elect Supreme Court judges.
Education
- University of Kansas · B.A., 1969
- University of Virginia-Main Campus · JD
- University of Virginia School of Law
Personal record
Born April 4, 1947 · Council Grove, KS
Courtroom rules and guidance
Appellate Oral Argument
In federal courts of appeals, oral argument is allowed unless a three-judge panel unanimously finds one of Rule 34's specified grounds for dispensing with it; the clerk provides the date, time, place, and time allocation.
Oral argument must be allowed in every case unless a panel of three judges who have examined the briefs and record unanimously agrees that oral argument is unnecessaryFederal Rule of Appellate Procedure 34, Oral Argument ↗
Sources
Federal Judicial Center biography
Identity source · HTML · checked July 25, 2026
https://www.fjc.gov/node/1378281CourtListener judicial biographical directory
Identity source · HTML · checked August 2, 2026
https://www.courtlistener.com/person/394/mary-beck-briscoe/Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 34, Oral Argument
Judge research source · HTML · checked July 26, 2026
https://www.uscourts.gov/forms-rules/current-rules-practice-procedure/federal-rules-appellate-procedure