Stephen Gordon

Biography

Since 2021, Stephen Gordon has been a federal public defender for the Eastern District of North Carolina, where he served as an assistant Federal Public Defender from 1997 to 2021. In these roles, he represented indigent defendants charged with federal felonies and misdemeanors at all stages of the litigation phase, from initial appearance through sentencing. In addition, he has represented convicted clients in the United States Supreme Court and the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. He wrote and argued numerous appeals in the Fourth Circuit and argued McNeill v. United States in 2011 in the Supreme Court.

From 1990 to 1997, Gordon was a trial attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice in Atlanta in the Antitrust Division and served as Special Assistant United States Attorney in the Northern District of Georgia, where he investigated and prosecuted complex conspiracies, including price fixing and bid rigging conspiracies, involving companies in North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Florida, Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi.

He has supervised law student interns, working closely with them on their legal writing and providing them opportunities to appear in court and to work with clients.

After graduating from Duke University School of Law with honors in 1988, Gordon clerked for the Honorable Charles L. Becton and the Honorable Allyson K. Duncan in the North Carolina Court of Appeals. He earned a master’s degree in English from California Polytechnic State University Pomona in English and a B.A. in English from Pitzer College.