About Aileen M.
Aileen M. McGrath trained first as a historian and then as a lawyer. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in History from Columbia University in 2003 and went on to receive her J.D. from Harvard Law School in 2007. Those classroom years set out a clear path: public service, appellate work and time in court chambers.
Early in her legal career McGrath clerked twice. She spent a term in 2007 with Chief Judge Michael Boudin of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. The next year she clerked for Justice Stephen G. Breyer at the Supreme Court of the United States. Those clerkships placed her at the center of federal appellate decision-making and informed how she approaches legal writing and oral argument.
After her clerkships she joined Goodwin Procter LLP as an associate in 2010. She moved into municipal practice in 2012 when she took a role as Deputy City Lawyer in the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office. She later returned to that office and by 2019 was serving as Co-Chief of Appellate Litigation, handling appeals for the city and advising on complex legal questions that reached state courts.
McGrath has also worked in chambers at the state level. In 2015 she served as a chambers lawyer at the California Supreme Court. The same year she held a senior counsel position in the Supreme Court & Appellate Practice at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP. That mix of state and federal appellate experience has shaped a practice comfortable in high-stakes briefing and argument.
She was admitted to the California State Bar in 2011 and maintains an active membership. Her work spans briefing, motions and argument in appellate courts, and she has handled matters that required close attention to procedural and constitutional issues. Colleagues describe her writing as concise and her oral presentations as measured; those traits reflect the steady work required in appellate practice rather than theatrical flourishes.
McGrath’s career traces a steady line from clerkship to private practice to municipal appellate leadership and back into a national firm setting. She is currently based at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP, where she practices in the firm’s Supreme Court and appellate group, handling appellate matters for a range of clients.
