Mark Rochon Obituary - Death Notice and Service Information

Rochon Mark John Rochon Mark (Age 68) Mark J. Rochon, a legendary lawyer, loving husband and father, music aficionado, voracious reader, and insatiable adventurer, died on October 3, 2025. He was 68 years old. Mark was born in Detroit and raised in Dearborn, Michigan where he graduated from Edsel Ford High School. His future path was foreshadowed when he insisted on donating student government funds to Mother Waddles Perpetual Mission, an independent church in Detroit that provided food, clothing and other basic services to Detroit's poor. That and other capers prompted Mark's high school guidance counselor to predict that Mark would never get into college. But after spending two years on a US Navy submarine, Mark attended Western Michigan University on the GI Bill, becoming the first person in his family to go to college and graduating in three years. At Western Michigan Mark discovered philosophy, a life-long love that would lead him back to school in his 60s to earn a master's degree in the Classics from St. John's College. Mark earned a law degree from Stanford Law School and started his legal career at the D.C. Public Defender Service (PDS), where he quickly rose to be the chief of the trial division. He distinguished himself through a mixture of daring, courage, and humor, and took pride in defending clients the criminal justice system marginalized. After PDS, Mark ran a small firm with other PDS alumni known for trying and winning the most challenging criminal cases; in his career Mark tried close to 50 homicide cases and a DC City Paper article said he "defends the indefensible and makes juries believe the unbelievable." Mark went on to an extended tenure as partner at Miller & Chevalier, where he represented an array of clients in criminal investigations and international litigation that took him around the globe. Among his many accomplishments at the firm, his proudest moments included representing the Palestinian Authority in cases in several District and Appellate Courts and before the United States Supreme Court. He also engaged in numerous non-profit activities, including post-Katrina murder representation in New Orleans, and founding and/or serving on the boards of Gideon's Promise, JusticeAid, and Rising for Justice. In a life filled with professional success, Mark pursued passions outside of work with the same vigor. He loved music and adopted New Orleans as his second home. A weekend at Jazz Fest in the late 1990s grew into a thirty-year love affair with the event where two-week stays became the norm and where Mark's daily preview of the performances were eagerly awaited by hundreds of people looking to navigate the cubes. He became a frequent patron and supporter of Preservation Hall and relished sitting at a bar with a musician just off stage and talking about that night's show and that artist's journey to it. Mark also loved books and the outdoors, and those passions led him to St. John's. For two years, Mark lived in Santa Fe, New Mexico and debated the great books of literary masters with students a third his age. He spent his days and evenings reading Aristotle, Wordsworth, and Hegel and analyzing water imagery in Faulkner, taking breaks to hike, mountain bike, and explore the great outdoors. Mark found his people everywhere. Among his best friends he counted former clients (from DC natives to Fortune 50 CEOs), naughty Brits, musicians, artists, and a wide cross-section of the D.C. legal community. People that knew Mark felt they held a special connection with him, and they did. The most special place in Mark's heart was reserved for his family: his sisters, Michelle (Robert) and Suzanne; nephews, Zac and Adam (Sarah), and most of all his wife Page and kids Georgia and Alex. A memorial service to celebrate Mark's remarkable life will be held on November 15, 2025 at 3:30 p.m. at St. Paul's Lutheran Church, 4900 Connecticut Ave NW. Live-streamed on the church website.

Mark John Rochon

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