Georgetown Law

Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Adjunct Professor of Law M. Margaret McKeown

Judge McKeown has served more than twenty-five years as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, an affiliated scholar at the Center for the American West at Stanford University, and jurist-in-residence at the University of San Diego School of Law. She has also taught as an adjunct faculty member at Northwestern University School of Law and the University of Washington School of Law. As a former White House Fellow, she served as special assistant at the White House and as special assistant to the Secretary of the Interior.

Judge McKeown recently published Citizen Justice: The Environmental Legacy of William O. Douglas—Public Advocate and Conservation Champion (Potomac Press, 2022).

Judge McKeown graduated from Georgetown University Law Center and holds an honorary doctorate from Georgetown University Law Center. Before her appointment, she was the first woman partner at Perkins Coie in Seattle and Washington, D.C., was a founder of the firm’s Washington, D.C. office, and concentrated on trial and appellate work in high tech cases, antitrust, intellectual property, and complex litigation.

Judge McKeown is a member of the Judicial Conference of the United States Committee on Judicial Conduct and Disability, appointed by Chief Justice Roberts. She was previously a member and chair of the Judicial Conference of the United States Committee on Code of Conduct (ethics). She chairs the Ninth Circuit Workplace Environment Committee and is a member of the National Workplace Conduct Working Group. She is on the Council of the American Law Institute, the Judicial Advisory Board of the American Society of International Law, and the editorial board of Litigation magazine. She also served as Chair of the ABA Commission on the 19th Amendment, past President of the Federal Judges Association, and on the managerial board of the International Association of Women Judges.

Judge McKeown is on the board of the World Justice Project and is Vice Chair of the ABA Rule of Law Initiative and a current special advisor. She has lectured throughout the world on international law, intellectual property, human rights, ethics, and constitutional law and has participated in numerous rule of law initiatives with judges and lawyers. She has published widely in the areas of technology, ethics, and international law.

Judge McKeown received the ABA Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement award, the ABA John Marshall Award, the Inns of Court Ninth Circuit Professionalism Award, the Washington Women Lawyers President’s Award, and the Girl Scouts Cool Woman Award, among others.

A Wyoming native, she serves on the board of Teton Science Schools and was a member of the first American expedition to Mt. Shishapangma in Tibet. Judge McKeown has her chambers in San Diego, California.