[2] Colloton earned a Bachelor of Arts degree, summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, from Princeton University in 1985 and a Juris Doctor from Yale Law School in 1988.

[3][5] Over the summers at Yale, he worked at Bell, Boyd, & Lloyd, now part of K&L Gates, in Chicago, at Covington & Burling in Washington, D.C., and for Judge Edward R.

[3] Colloton served as a special assistant to the attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel within the United States Justice Department from 1990 to 1991.

[6] Colloton was nominated to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit by President George W. Bush on February 12, 2003, to a seat vacated by David R.

[11][12] In February 2017, Colloton vacated the enhanced sentences imposed upon members of the Native Mob, finding that Minnesota's definition of burglary was not a violent felony under the Armed Career Criminal Act.