Michael E. Ridgway

Hon. Michael E. Ridgway is Chief U.S. Bankruptcy Judge for the District of Minnesota in Minneapolis and Fergus Falls, initially sworn in on May 20, 2013, and named Chief Judge on June 21, 2019. He has also presided over cases in the District of North Dakota and was appointed by the Eighth Circuit JudicialCouncil as a member of the Bankruptcy Appellate Panel of the Eighth Circuit, effective April 1, 2021.In addition, Judge Ridgway has taught a course in bankruptcy over the last five years at the University of St. Thomas Law School. From 2006 until his appointment, he served as a trial attorney with the U.S.Trustee Program in Minneapolis. In October 2011, he was among a group of seven U.S. Trustee Program<br>attorneys who received the U.S. Attorney General’s Distinguished Service Award, the Department ofJustice’s second-highest award for employee performance, for “Exceptional Work to Address Misconduct and Abusive Practices in the U.S. Bankruptcy System.” From 1998-2006, he was an Assistant U.S.Attorney in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of South Dakota. During his tenure there, he rep-resented the interest of the federal government in both civil and criminal matters, including bankruptcy, asset forfeiture and prosecutions of white-collar fraud cases. Judge Ridgway also has extensive litigation experience, having been in private practice for 17 years; he also served as an elected county prosecutor for over five years. He has prosecuted several bench and jury trials in both the state and federal courts.Judge Ridgway received his undergraduate degree in 1978 from Yankton College and his J.D. in 1981 from the University of Notre Dame Law School.