Chief Judge Mary M. Schroeder, with former Chief Judge Proctor Hug

Mary M. Schroeder (born December 4, 1940 in Boulder, Colorado) is the Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. She received her BA from Swarthmore in 1962 and her JD from the University of Chicago in 1965, one of six women in her class. She practiced as a trial attorney with the Civil Division of the United States Department of Justice from 1965 until 1969. She served as a law clerk to Justice Jesse A. Udall of the Arizona Supreme Court in 1970. She joined the law firm of Lewis & Roca in Phoenix, Arizona in 1971 and became a partner in 1973. She was appointed to the Arizona Court of Appeals in 1975 and served until 1979, when she was nominated by President Jimmy Carter and appointed to the Ninth Circuit. She was elevated to Chief Judge of the Ninth Circuit in December 2000, the first woman to hold that position.

She is married to Milton Schroeder, a professor at the Arizona State University College of Law, and has two children.