Michael Bryant is an Indigenous law counsel and negotiator.

As Minister of Aboriginal Affairs in 2008, Bryant personally negotiated the $2+ billion Gaming Revenue and Financial Agreement between Ontario First Nations and the Government, the first of its kind in Canada. It was ratified unanimously by Ontario First Nations in 2008. This unique negotiation took place over a week of marathon sessions. Bryant negotiated on behalf of the Crown, personally, across the table from the Chiefs leading their Negotiation Committee. Bryant worked closely with all indigenous leaders, elected and unelected, throughout his decade at Queen's Park. Bryant also personally negotiated the return of the Ipperwash Provincial Park to its home First Nation in 2007.

After leaving elected office, Bryant was the Chief Negotiator for the Chippewas of Kettle and Stony Point First Nation, settling the claim in 2015, after decades of failed attempts to resolve the federal Crown's misappropriation of the entire Stony Point First Nation during the Second World War. Bryant negotiated the Ipperwash Final Settlement, being $100 million plus the return and cleanup of contaminated lands of Stony Point, and was Special Counsel to the First Nation during the difficult ratification process.

Michael Bryant is called to the bar in Ontario and British Columbia. He is certified as a Member of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators. Bryant completed a master's thesis on indigenous land claims policy in Canada and the United States, at UBC, in 1988, earning an MA in Political Science. After studying under the indigenous law scholars Brian Slattery and Kent McNeil at Osgoode Hall Law School, in 1994 Bryant earned an LLM at Harvard Law School as a Fulbright Fellow, completing that graduate thesis, again, on comparative and international components of indigenous law.

After leaving elected office, Bryant worked as Special Advisor at Norton Rose Fulbright LLP from 2009 to 2011, working exclusively in indigenous and energy affairs. From 2011 to 2015 he served as Principal at Ishkonigan Consulting and Mediation, working primarily for First Nations and in business development. Before elected office, in the 1990s, Bryant worked on indigenous rights appeals for BC First Nations at Blakes LLP under Marvin Storrow, Q.C., and then practised with the Hon. Ian Binnie at McCarthy Tétrault LLP. Both were counsel in the landmark Supreme Court of Canada cases Guerin and Sparrow.

Bryant's first official task as Attorney General in 2003 was to launch the Ipperwash Provincial Inquiry, led by the Hon. Sidney B. Linden. His first official task as Minister of Aboriginal Affairs in 2007 was to implement a key recommendation of that inquiry, returning the provincial Ipperwash Park to the Chippewas of Kettle and Stony Point First Nation.

As Minister of Aboriginal Affairs, Bryant established the New Relationship Fund, originally called the Aboriginal Capacity Fund, to assist indigenous capacity in negotiations outside of legal claims. During 2007 and 2008, Bryant worked closely with Six Nations of the Grand River, both its elected and traditional tribal council, and the surrounding municipalities, to establish detente between the Crown and First Nation after the Caledonia protests of that era.

Bryant was asked by LexisNexis to write the chapter on indigenous rights for its commemorative publication Canada at 150: Building a Free and Democratic Society. Other authors included former prime ministers and premiers. Bryant contributed an aide mémoire to the Hon. Frank Iacobucci's 2013 report First Nations Representation on Ontario Juries, and he published a chapter in the 2016 book of essays From Recognition to Reconciliation: Essays on the Constitutional Entrenchment of Aboriginal and Treaty Rights. He has authored numerous scholarly works and editorial commentaries on indigenous affairs.

In addition to publishing articles and chapters on indigenous rights, Mr. Bryant taught Aboriginal Politics at the University of Toronto in 2014 and has taught public law at King's College London and Osgoode Hall Law School.