HON. MARK R. HORNAK

The Honorable Mark R. Hornak was appointed as a United States District Judge by President Barack Obama on October 19, 2011 and entered on duty on November 21, 2011. He served as Chief Judge of the Court from December 7, 2018 through December 6, 2025.

Judge Hornak was born in Homestead, Pennsylvania in 1956, and grew up in Munhall, Pennsylvania. He received his Bachelor of Arts, cum laude, from the University of Pittsburgh in 1978, where he was a National Merit Scholar, and a James Fulton Congressional Intern with Hon. William S. Moorhead (PA-14). He received his law degree, summa cum laude, from the University of Pittsburgh in 1981, and was named a University Scholar by the Chancellor of the University. While in law school, he served as editor-in-chief of the University of Pittsburgh Law Review. Upon graduation, he was inducted into the Order of the Coif.

Judge Hornak is Chair of the Committee on Judicial Security of the Judicial Conference of the United States. He previously chaired its subcommittee on Operations, Technology and Education. While Chief Judge, he served as a member of the Judicial Council of the Third Circuit and now chairs the Council Rules Committee and the Circuit Committee on Criminal Jury Instructions and serves on the Council’s Committees on Defender Services, Reentry Courts and Judicial Security. In addition, the Chief Justice of Pennsylvania has appointed Judge Hornak to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s Commission on Judicial Independence. Judge Hornak is a founding Judge of the Court’s “Veterans Court” and “BRIDGES Court” Reentry Court Programs.

Judge Hornak served as a law clerk to Hon. James M. Sprouse of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit from 1981 to 1982. From 1989 to 1993, he served as an Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of Pittsburgh, teaching employment litigation. He is an Elected Life Member of the American Law Institute and serves as an Advisor for the Institute’s Restatement of the Law, Constitutional Torts, and is a Life Fellow of the American Bar Foundation.

Judge Hornak is a member of the faculty of the National Trial Advocacy College, formerly associated with the University of Virginia and now conducted at the College of William & Mary’s Marshall-Wythe School of Law. In 2025, he was presented with the Trial Advocacy College’s William J. Brennan Jr. Award for his contributions to enhancing trial advocacy and advancing the legal profession. In 2023, Judge Hornak delivered the Commencement Address at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, of which he has been designated a Distinguished Alumnus, and he also delivered the inaugural John H. Sorg Lecture on Legal Ethics on behalf of the Allegheny County Bar Association.

In 1982, Judge Hornak began the practice of law at the Pittsburgh office of Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney PC, where he served on the Firm’s Executive Committee and chaired its Labor and Employment Law Practice Group, its Advisory (Compensation and Promotions) Committee and its Conflicts Committee, and where he remained in practice until his appointment to the Court. His practice focused on civil litigation, labor and employment law, the representation of government agencies and officials, and the national representation of broadcasters, publishers and authors, along with extensive service as an ADR neutral. From 1994 to 2011, Judge Hornak was the Solicitor to the Sports & Exhibition Authority of Pittsburgh and Allegheny County, serving as the principal public lawyer for the development and construction of three major league sports venues, PNC Park, Acrisure Stadium, and PPG Paints Arena, along with the David L. Lawrence Convention Center.

While in practice, Judge Hornak participated in a variety of community organizations, including service as a publicly elected member and President of the Board of School Directors of the Steel Valley (PA) School District and as a member of the Board of School Directors of the Allegheny Intermediate Unit. He has also served on the boards of the Pittsburgh Foundation, the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Western Pennsylvania, the Girl Scouts of Southwestern Pennsylvania, WQED Multimedia, Leadership Pittsburgh, and the Pennsylvania Economy League of Southwestern Pennsylvania. He previously served as a Battalion Chief/Emergency Medical Technician with the Munhall Volunteer Fire Department, and as an interscholastic basketball official.

Judge Hornak has served as a Governor of the Academy of Trial Lawyers of Allegheny County and of the Allegheny County Bar Association, and as a member of the Advisory Committee on Practice and Procedure of the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania. He is a co-founder of the Q. Todd Dickinson American Inn of Court, which is dedicated to intellectual property law, and of which he serves as Counselor.

While in practice, Judge Hornak was peer-recognized as a “Best Lawyer in America,” as one of Pennsylvania’s “Top 100 Lawyers,” as one of the “Top 50 Lawyers” in Pittsburgh, and as Pittsburgh’s 2012 Lawyer of the Year in labor law. For many years, he was listed in Chambers and Partners “Leading Lawyers -- USA” in labor and employment law.