Gov. Laura Kelly on Friday named Chris Jayaram of Overland Park as a new district judge in the 10th Judicial District, which covers Johnson County.
Jayaram will take the seat that came open when Judge Thomas Foster retired last Nov. 29 after serving on the bench for 21 years.
Jayaram – a 1997 graduate of the Northwestern School of Law at Lewis and Clark College in Portland – has been an attorney at Horn Aylward & Bandy in Kansas City, Missouri since 1999.
He specialized in business and commercial litigation, healthcare law, product liability litigation and trucking litigation
A 1993 graduate of the University of Kansas with a bachelor’s degree in environmental science, Jayaram worked for the Environmental Protection Agency out of school and later as a law clerk in the trial division of the Oregon Department of Justice.
He later worked for the Portland law firm of Smith, Freed, Heald & Chock before moving to Kansas City.
Kelly chose Jayaram over Johnson County Magistrate Judge Jenifer Ashford and Vanessa Riebli, section chief for the Johnson County District Attorney’s Office.
