Mary M. Rowland
Magistrate Judge
U.S. District Court Northern District of Illinois
Chicago, IL
312-435-5358
[email protected]
Magistrate Judge Rowland is a native of Akron, Ohio. She attended the University of Michigan for
undergrad, and then the University of Chicago for law school. After law school, she clerked for District
Judge Julian Cook in Detroit, Michigan. Following her clerkship, Judge Rowland worked as a staff
attorney and then Chief Appellate Attorney for the Federal Defender Program for the Northern District of
Illinois. During that time, she represented over 275 indigent defendants in every aspect of a federal
criminal case, including trying several federal criminal jury trials and arguing many cases before the
Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. While at the Federal Defender Program, Judge Rowland spoke at
seminars about the sentencing guidelines and persuasive legal writing. In 2000, Judge Rowland joined
the law firm Hughes Socol Piers Resnick & Dym, where she led the criminal defense practice and also
litigated many high-profile civil cases. Judge Rowland was sworn in as a United States Magistrate Judge
on October 1, 2012. Since 2009, Judge Rowland has been a member of the Board of Directors of the
Chicago Chapter of the Federal Bar Association. Between 2008 and 2012, she was a member of the
Seventh Circuit Electronic Discovery Pilot Program serving as a co-chair of the Education Committee.