About Mark McCown

I am Mark McCown, and I want to continue my service to this great community by taking the next step, and becoming the Ironton Municipal Court Judge.

I grew up in Ironton as the third of four children of Terry and Eleanor McCown. A blue collar family, hard work and discipline were not just expected, but demanded. Dad worked long hours and double shifts at the plant in Haverhill until he retired, and Mom stayed home to raise us kids until my younger brother and I were old enough to stay by ourselves after school. She then worked at the Unemployment Bureau, advancing to become the manager until she retired.

I graduated from Ironton High School in 1990 as the valedictorian, and from Miami University with honors in 1994, working in the dining halls to help pay my way. I then moved to Washington, DC to attend law school at Georgetown University, graduating with my juris doctorate in 1997.

I moved back to Ironton and joined the law firm built up by my uncles, David and Frank McCown.

I came back not just to work, but to help build a better community for my family.

I married fellow IHS alum Anke Duerr,  who was an exchange student here for our senior year, and who had become a lawyer in Germany. Anke moved here, and has been an Instructor of German at Marshall University for many years.

We have three young children: Annika, Marlena, and Finn, who now walk the same halls of St. Lawrence Elementary School that I did when it was called Kingsbury.

I came full circle from Ironton to Oxford to our nation’s capital to a house in Ironton two blocks from where I grew up for a simple reason: my parents instilled in me a desire to learn and the need to help others whenever possible.

Now in my 20th year of the practice of law, I have used what I’ve learned to help not only my clients, but local organizations as well. From serving as the legal adviser to the Ironton St. Joe Mock Trial team for the last 20 years to providing free legal assistance to the Lawrence County Humane Society, From educating business law students at Ohio University Southern to answering legal questions in the Ironton Tribune “It’s the Law” column, from previously serving as president of the Ironton Council for the Arts, on the board of the Lawrence County Historical Society, and as a member of the Lions Club, to serving as president of the Lawrence County Bar Association and as worship leader at First United Methodist Church, I have tried to educate our youth and citizens, lead by example, and give back to this great community that has supported my family.