Judge Margaret McKeown

The Honorable M. Margaret McKeown 

United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit 

Judge McKeown was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit by President Clinton and was confirmed by the United States Senate in 1998. She attended the University of Madrid and graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Wyoming with a B.A. in 1972 and from Georgetown University Law Center with a J.D. in 1975. She received an honorary doctorate from Georgetown University in 2005. Judge McKeown was a White House Fellow in 1980-1981, serving as Special Assistant to the Secretary of the Interior and Special Assistant at the White House. In 1993, she served as a Japan Society Leadership Fellow.

Judge McKeown is President of the Federal Judges Association, on the board of the ABA Rule of Law Initiative, and chair of the ABA Latin America and Carribean Council. She serves on the Judicial Advisory Board for the American Society of International Law, the managerial board of the International Association of Women Judges, and the Council of the American Law Institute. She is vice-chair of the Georgetown Law Board of Visitors and Jurist-in-Residence at the University of San Diego Law School. 

Judge McKeown has been an advisor on several international projects of the American Law Institute: Intellectual Property: Principles Governing Jurisdiction, Choice of Law, and Judgments in Transnational Disputes (2008); International Commercial Arbitration (ongoing); and Foreign Relations Law (ongoing). 

Judge McKeown has lectured and taught extensively on intellectual property, international law, litigation, ethics, judicial administration, and constitutional law in Latin America, Asia, and Europe. She is co-author of “Trial Tactics in Trade Secret Litigation,” Intellectual Property Counseling and Litigation (Matthew Bender), “The Promises of a New World Information Order,” The Knowledge Economy (Aspen Institute), and “The Lost Sanctuary: Examining Sex Trafficking Through the Lens of Ah Sou” (Cornell Journal of International Law); “The Counsel Conundrum: Effective Representation in Immigration Proceedings,” Refugee Roulette (NYU Press); “Happy Birthday Statute of Anne: The Dance Between the Courts and Congress” (Berkeley Technology Law Journal); and “To Judge or Not to Judge: Transparency and Recusal in the Federal System,” (The Review of Litigation). She is also an author of Business and Commercial Litigation in Federal Courts (West Group). 

Judge McKeown has received a number of prestigious awards, including the ABA Margaret Brent Women of Achievement Award, the Georgetown University John Carroll Award, the Georgetown University Law Center Outstanding Alumnae, the University of Wyoming A&S Outstanding Alumna, the Outstanding Mentor Award from Big Sisters, the Federal Bar Association Community Service Award, and the Girl Scouts’ “Cool Women” Award. 

Judge McKeown has been active in community and civic affairs. She has served on the national boards of Volunteers of America and Girl Scouts of the U.S.A. and is the past chair of the White House Fellows Foundation.