[2] Prior to joining the federal bench, Gruender worked as an attorney both in private practice and public service.

After law school, he was in private practice at Lewis, Rice & Fingersh from 1987 to 1990, at which point he became an Assistant United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri.

[3] In 2000, he left Thompson Coburn to rejoin the United States Attorneys' Office, and in 2001 he became the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri, a position he remained in until his confirmation to the Eighth Circuit in 2004.

[4] Gruender was nominated to the Eighth Circuit by President George W. Bush on September 29, 2003, to fill a seat vacated by Judge Pasco Bowman II.

[15] On May 18, 2016, then Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump announced that Gruender was on his list of potential Supreme Court nominees.