Judge Margo A. Rocconi

Margo Rocconi was appointed as a United States Magistrate Judge in March 2021. Prior to her appointment, she served as a deputy federal public defender in Los Angeles for over twenty-five years—including as a supervising deputy beginning in 2006, and as Chief of the Capital Habeas Unit for the last six years of her tenure. Her experience included capital and non-capital habeas litigation and appeals, and some criminal trial work. Judge Rocconi also chaired the Capital Habeas Attorney Panel Advisory Committee, served as the training chief for the Capital Habeas Unit and the panel, and was an adjunct professor at Loyola Law School. Before joining the Federal Public Defender’s Office, Judge Rocconi was in private practice at a law firm doing general civil litigation and post-conviction work. Prior to that, she worked in Washington, D.C. as a Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. Scholar on the retired Justice’s private legal archive, known as The Brennan Papers.

Judge Rocconi received her undergraduate degree from the University of California at Santa Barbara with honors, her law degree from Pepperdine University School of Law, and a Master of Laws from Georgetown University School of Law.