Biography
Mark L. Wolf was appointed to the United States District Court for the District of
Massachusetts in 1985, served as its Chief Judge from 2006 through 2012, and is now a Senior
Judge. He has previously served as a member of the Judicial Conference of the United States and
Chair of the Committee of District Judges on the Judicial Conference, and on the Judicial
Conference Committees on Criminal Law, the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, and Codes
of Conduct.
Judge Wolf also previously served in the Department of Justice as a Special Assistant to
the Deputy Attorney General of the United States (1974) and the Attorney General of the United
States (1975-1977), and as Deputy United States Attorney for the District of Massachusetts and
Chief of the Public Corruption unit in that office (1981-1985). He was also in private practice in
Washington, D.C. (1971-1974) and in Boston (1977-1981).
Judge Wolf is the Chair of Integrity Initiatives International, an international NGO whose
mission is to strengthen the enforcement of criminal laws to punish and deter leaders who are
corrupt and regularly violate human rights. He is also the Chair of the John William Ward Public
Service Fellowship, the Chairman Emeritus of the Albert Schweitzer Fellowship, and the past
Chair of the Judge David S. Nelson Fellowship.
Among other honors, Judge Wolf received a Certificate of Appreciation from President
Gerald Ford for his work in the resettlement of Indochinese refugees (1976), the Attorney
General's Distinguished Service Award (1984), an honorary degree from Boston Latin School
(1990), the Boston Bar Association's Citation for Judicial Excellence (2002 and 2007); similar
citations from the Boston Chapter of the Federal Bar Association (2009) and the Massachusetts
Bar Association (2012); and the International Conference of Chief Justices of the World Mother
Teresa Award (2021).
A graduate of Yale College and the Harvard Law School, Judge Wolf has taught courses
on the role of the judge in American democracy at the Harvard, Boston College, New England
and University of California - Irvine Law Schools. He is or has recently been: a Hauser Leaders
Fellow and an Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, where he has
taught a seminar on Combating Corruption Internationally; a Senior Fellow of the Harvard Carr
Center for Human Rights; a member of the Council on Foreign Relations; and a Distinguished
Non-Resident Fellow of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. He has spoken
on the role of the judge in a democracy, human rights issues, and combating corruption in many
countries, including Russia, China, Ukraine, Turkey, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia,
Romania, Hungary, Egypt, Cyprus, Panama, Colombia, Mexico, Norway, the United Kingdom,
the Netherlands, and at the Vatican.