Judge Michael R. Sheldon was born and raised in Schenectady, New York, where he attended public schools before attending Princeton University. At Princeton, where he was named a University Scholar and Scholar of the Woodrow Wilson School, he received an A.B. in Public and International Affairs and a Certificate of Proficiency in Russian Studies in 1971. Thereafter, he attended Yale Law School, from which he graduated in 1974.

Following law school, Judge Sheldon participated in the E. Barrett Prettyman Legal Internship Program at the Georgetown University Law Center. In that capacity, he was trained in criminal trial and appellate advocacy while supervising upper-class law students in the representation of criminal defendants in the Law Center's Clinical Programs. In 1976, he was hired by the University of Connecticut School of Law as a professor of law and appointed director of the Criminal Clinic. He worked at the Law School until 1991, teaching courses in criminal law and procedure, establishing and operating the Moot Court Interterm Program, and training and supervising upper-class law students in the representation of criminal defendants in the Trial and Appellate Divisions of the Criminal Clinic.

Judge Sheldon was appointed to the Superior Court by Governor Lowell P. Weicker, Jr. in 1991. In his 20 years of service as a Superior Court judge, his assignments included terms in the Civil and Criminal Divisions of the Hartford, New Britain and Litchfield Superior Courts, as well as a four-year term pioneering the Complex Litigation Docket in Waterbury. He is a member of the Code of Evidence Oversight Committee, and has previously served as chair of the Civil Electronic Benchbook Committee, co-chair of the Education Committee, and a member of the Rules Committee, the Civil Division Task Force and the Civil Jury Instructions Committee. Judge Sheldon was elevated to the Appellate Court by Governor Dannel P. Malloy in 2011.

Off the bench, Judge Sheldon has coached the mock trial teams of Canton High School and Canton Intermediate School, conducted educational programs for Russian judges and lawyers as vice-chair of the Connecticut-Pskov Rule of Law Partnership, and co-taught a course in Law and Forensic Science at the University of Connecticut School of Law. In 2009, he received the Connecticut Bar Association’s Henry J. Naruk Judiciary Award, and was named a Distinguished Friend of Education by the Connecticut Association of Schools.

He lives in Canton with his wife, Diane, with whom he has raised their four children: Graham, Conor, Rowan and Cameron.