He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard College in 1963 and a Juris Doctor from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1966.

Stephen Breyer has recused himself from appeals of cases tried by his brother, including Olympic Airways v. Husain, Department of Housing and Urban Development v. Rucker, United States v. Oakland Cannabis Buyers’ Cooperative, Monsanto Co. v. Geertson Seed Farms,[4] Amgen, Inc. v. Connecticut Retirement Plans and Trust Funds and City and County of San Francisco v.

[9] He also presided over the stock-options backdating trial of Brocade Communications Systems CEO Gregory Reyes in 2007.

[10] He presided over the 2014 criminal case involving San Francisco police theft[11] and racist texting, in which his court order was blamed for the delay in releasing information.

[13] Breyer was married to the late Sydney Goldstein,[14] who founded City Arts & Lectures in San Francisco in 1980 and for whom the Nourse Theater was renamed in her honor after her death in 2018.