Gabriel Fuentes

U.S. Magistrate Judge Gabriel A. Fuentes was appointed to his position by the U.S. District Court on May 31, 2019 in the Northern District of Illinois. From March 2006 through May 2019, he was a partner at the Chicago law firm of Jenner & Block, where he co-chaired the firm’s Pro Bono Committee, conducted internal investigations, and represented individuals and corporations in federal and state criminal and civil matters, antitrust litigation, First Amendment and media law, and complex class actions. Judge Fuentes has spoken, written, and litigated concerning proper limits on the use of expert testimony in criminal cases. From June 2001 through March 2006, as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Chicago, Judge Fuentes investigated and prosecuted a wide array of criminal matters, tried and argued multiple cases to verdict and through appeal in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, and engineered the safe return of three U.S. citizen children being held unlawfully in the Kingdom of Jordan. Prior to his government service, Judge Fuentes was an associate and then partner at Jenner & Block from 1994 through June 2001, litigating complex civil matters. Judge Fuentes, who served as a law clerk to the Hon. John F. Grady in the Northern District of Illinois, holds a Juris Doctor degree from Northwestern University’s Pritzker School of Law, where he currently teaches trial practice as an adjunct faculty member. He is a former president of the Chicago Council of Lawyers, a board member of the Chicago Chapter of the Federal Bar Association, and a former commissioner on the American Bar Association’s Commission on Youth At Risk. He also is an active member of the Illinois Latino Judges’ Association, the Hispanic Lawyers’ Association of Illinois, and the Hispanic National Bar Association, which named him Pro Bono Lawyer of the Year in 2015. Before attending law school, Judge Fuentes worked as a professional journalist for news media organizations including the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, and the City News Bureau of Chicago. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Journalism degree from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.