James Milton Burns (November 24, 1924 – December 21, 2001) was an American attorney and judge in Oregon.

Burns was born in Portland, Oregon, on November 24, 1924,[1] and was raised by an aunt after both of his parents had died by the time he was ten years old.

[3] Burns was in private practice in Portland from 1950 to 1952, and again from 1956 to 1966, serving in the interim as a district attorney of Harney County, in Eastern Oregon.

[1] He was a judge of the Oregon Circuit Court for Multnomah County from 1966 to 1972, becoming a member of the faculty of the National Judicial College in 1971.

[2] At the time he took senior status he lived along the Willamette River in Wilsonville, Oregon, in the Portland metropolitan area with his wife Helen.