Hon. Mary S. McElroy is a Judge in the United States District Court for the District of Rhode Island.

Judge McElroy began her legal career in 1992 by serving as a law clerk to Justice Donald F. Shea of the Rhode Island Supreme Court. In 1993 she joined the law firm of Tate and Elias LLC in Providence, Rhode Island as an associate.  From 1994 to 2006, she served as an Assistant Rhode Island Public Defender for the Rhode Island Public Defender’s Office where she represented indigent Rhode Islanders on an array of criminal charges. She became an assistant federal public defender for the districts of Massachusetts,
New Hampshire, and Rhode Island in 2006 and returned to the Rhode Island Public Defender’s office to become its first female chief in 2012. She served in that position until she was sworn in as U.S. District Court judge on Oct. 2, 2019.

In September 2015, President Obama nominated her for the U.S. District Court in Rhode Island.  That nomination expired but she was nominated again in 2018 and 2019 by then President Trump.  On September 11, 2019, the Senate confirmed her nomination by a voice vote.  She received her judicial commission on September 30, 2019.

Born in Providence Rhode Island Mary is a lifelong Rhode Islander who was educated in public schools in Warwick along with her three siblings.  She is the daughter of Edward and Edwina (Ricci) McElroy.  In 1993 she married Robert Jordan, and they have two children: Evan and Chloe.  Judge McElroy attended Providence College, where she met her husband and received a Bachelor of Arts degree in history in 1987. She attended Suffolk University Law School in the evenings while working as a paralegal in the
civil division of the Rhode Island Attorney General’s Office and received her Juris Doctor, cum laude in 1992.

Judge McElroy has chosen the Rhode Island Food Bank to be the 2023 Providence St. Patrick’s Day Parade Grand Marshal Charity.  The Rhode Island Food Bank received the proceeds from the Grand Marshal’s Dinner and Show.