Chief Justice Mark V. Green was born in Moline, Illinois, on September 1, 1956. He received his A.B. degree, with distinction in all subjects, from Cornell University in 1978, and his J.D. degree, cum laude, from Harvard Law School in 1982. Chief Justice Green practiced transactional real estate law as an associate with the firms of Herrick & Smith and Goulston & Storrs until 1990, when he accepted a position with Shawmut Bank as Vice President and Senior Counsel for Real Estate. From 1994 to 1995, Chief Justice Green was General Counsel of The Mortgage Acquisition Corporation. Chief Justice Green joined the legal department of BayBank, N.A. in 1995, where he remained through its merger with the Bank of Boston in 1996.
In May, 1997, Chief Justice Green was appointed by Governor William F. Weld as an Associate Justice of the Massachusetts Land Court, where he served until his appointment by Governor Jane M. Swift to the Appeals Court on November 1, 2001. On December 6, 2017, he was appointed Chief Justice of the Appeals Court by Governor Charles D. Baker.
While at the Land Court, Chief Justice Green chaired a committee that promulgated the Land Court's Guidelines for Registered Land. In 2003, at the request of the Supreme Judicial Court, Chief Justice Green chaired the Study Committee on Trial Transcripts. From 2012 until his appointment as Chief Justice, he chaired the combined appellate courts' IT Steering Committee where, among other initiatives, he led the courts' implementation of electronic filing.
Chief Justice Green has been a panelist on numerous continuing legal education programs sponsored by Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education and the Boston Bar Association, among others. He also has been a guest lecturer for courses at the Harvard Business School and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Center for Real Estate Studies. From 2007 until his appointment as Chief Justice, he served as a member of the Board of Editors of the Boston Bar Journal. In 2005 and 2009, Chief Justice Green participated in rule of law exchange programs in Russia and, in 2011, he was a member of a rule of law exchange in the Peoples Republic of China focused on the American jury trial system.
Chief Justice Green is active in the Council of Chief Judges of the State Courts of Appeal, currently serving as its Vice President and as a member of the Executive, Strategic Planning, Finance and Annual Conference Committees. He previously served as Secretary-Treasurer and chair of the Finance Committee in 2023, and as chair of the Annual Conference Committee, and of the Conference Host Committee, in 2021.
He is married, with two children.