M. Margaret McKeown has served on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit since 1998. Before joining the court, she was the first woman partner at Perkins Coie law firm in Seattle and Washington, DC. Judge McKeown was a White House Fellow and served as Special Assistant to the Secretary of Interior and at the White House. A Wyoming native, Judge McKeown attended the University of Madrid, received her BA from the University of Wyoming and her JD from Georgetown University Law Center, and holds an honorary doctorate from Georgetown.
She serves on the Council of the American Law Institute, the managerial board of the International Association of Women Judges, the Judicial Advisory Board of the American Society of International Law, and the editorial board of Litigation magazine. She is Jurist-in-Residence at the University of San Diego Law School and has lectured throughout the world on topics as diverse as international law and intellectual property.
Judge McKeown is an avid hiker and is often found tramping the Teton trails. She was a member of the first American mountain climbing expedition to Mt. Shishapangma in Tibet.
She has been involved with Murie Ranch for many years, first serving on the board of the Murie Center and now chairing the Murie Ranch Committee of TSS. She is the author of the forthcoming book, Citizen Justice: The Environmental Legacy of Justice William O. Douglas, which recounts Justice Douglas’s relationship with Olaus and Mardy Murie.
Judge McKeown is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and received the ABA Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award, the ABA John Marshall Award, and the Girl Scouts Cool Woman Award, among others.
