M. Margaret McKeown

Judge M. Margaret McKeown was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in 1998. Before appointment, she was the first female partner at Perkins Coie in Seattle and Washington, DC. She holds a J.D. and an honorary doctorate from Georgetown University Law Center. Judge McKeown was a White House Fellow, serving as Special Assistant to the Secretary of the Interior and Special Assistant at the White House, and also served as a Japan Society Leadership Fellow.

Judge McKeown serves on the Council of the American Law Institute, the board of the World Justice Project, and the Editorial Board of the Litigation Journal. She is a member of the U.S. Judicial Conference Judicial Conduct and Disability Committee, former chair of the U.S. Judicial Conference Codes of Conduct Committee, and has worked extensively on workplace and ethics issues in the federal courts. She is past president of the Federal Judges Association and former chair of the ABA Rule of Law Initiative. Judge McKeown has lectured and published widely on ethics, intellectual property, international law, and litigation and has spent two decades working on rule of law projects with judges and lawyers abroad.

Judge McKeown is on the board of the Ninth Judicial Circuit Historical Society and a frequent contributor to Western Legal History. A Wyoming native, she serves on the board of the Teton Science Schools in Jackson, Wyoming. Her forthcoming book (2022) is Citizen Justice: The Environmental Legacy of William O. Douglas—Public Advocate and Conservation Champion.

Judge McKeown is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and jurist-in-residence at the University of San Diego School of Law. She has received numerous awards, including the ABA Margaret Brent Women of Achievement Award, the ABA John Marshall Award, the California Bar Intellectual Property Vanguard Award, the White House Fellows Legacy of Leadership Award, and the Girl Scouts’ “Cool Woman” Award.