On August 6, 2019, Judge Peter D. Welte was sworn in as a District Judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of North Dakota. He was sworn in by Eighth Circuit Judge Ralph R. Erickson, whose vacancy Judge Welte filled after Judge Erickson was elevated to the Eighth Circuit in October 2017.

Judge Welte grew up on a family farm in western Grand Forks County, North Dakota. He graduated from Northwood High School in 1984 and earned a bachelor’s degree in Agricultural Economics from North Dakota State University in 1989. After a brief stint working for the United States Department of Agriculture, he went back to law school. He earned his Juris Doctorate, with distinction, from the University of North Dakota School of Law in 1997.

Judge Welte began his career in private practice with Juntunen, Hager and Welte, based in Grand Forks, North Dakota. He was appointed Steele County (ND) State’s Attorney in 1998 and was appointed as an Assistant State’s Attorney in Grand Forks County in 1999. He also served as the City Attorney for Larimore, North Dakota, for several years. As an Assistant State’s Attorney, he was one of the first prosecutors in North Dakota to prosecute crimes of domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking under the Violence Against Women Act. He was elected Grand Forks County State’s Attorney in 2002, serving as the elected State’s Attorney until 2015, when he left public practice to reenter private practice by establishing the Vogel Law Firm’s branch office in Grand Forks, North Dakota. He served as an adjunct instructor at the University of North Dakota School of Law from 2004 to 2018, and frequently is a guest presenter there, and throughout the legal community.

In 2019 he was appointed as a U.S. District Judge for the District of North Dakota. Since November 2019, he has served as Chief Judge of the North Dakota District. He is a member of the Committee on Space and Facilities for the Judicial Conference of the United States.