Kevin M. Ryan, Esq. is the first Commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Children and Families and serves as a member of Governor Jon S. Corzine's Cabinet.

Prior to heading up the new department, which is dedicated to keeping families strong and children safe, Kevin served as Commissioner of the Department of Human Services.

Prior to serving as Commissioner, Kevin served as the state's first Child Advocate from 2003 to 2006, representing and protecting the interests of children at risk of abuse and neglect, and actively advocating for improvements within New Jersey’s child welfare, juvenile justice, mental health and developmental disabilities systems.

Kevin also represented homeless youth at Covenant House for nearly ten years before becoming Child Advocate, working from shelters and storefronts in New York City’s Times Square and the South Bronx, as well as Newark and Atlantic City.

Kevin is a 1989 B.A. graduate of Catholic University of America and a 1992 J.D. graduate of Georgetown Law Center. He earned his LL.M. (Masters of Law) from NYU Law School in 2000, where he focused on public interest law and children's constitutional rights.

In 1998 and 1999, Kevin worked to preserve protections in federal juvenile justice bills that kept non-violent status offending children (such as runaways and truants) out of secure detention with adult offenders. In 1999, he co-drafted the New Jersey Homeless Youth Act and in 2000 drafted expansions in public health insurance coverage for foster children in the Family Care Act. Harvard Law School recognized his work in 2000 by naming him a Wasserstein Fellow.

He has taught law at Fordham Law School, Seton Hall Law School and Rutgers Law School focusing on Poverty Law, Children's Rights and Constitutional Law. He is the author of numerous articles on poverty, children and the interests of families. He and his wife Clare have six children.