Judge Mark Vert Mooney received his B.A. from the University of Southern California in 1978 and his J.D. from Southern Methodist University School of Law in 1981. After passing the California bar in 1982, he became an associate at Hillsinger and Costanzo where he defended medical malpractice, products liability, and public entity cases. In 1987, he joined Tores and Brenner and then switched to Lafollette, Johnson, DeHaas, Fesler and Ames a year later. In 1991, he became an assistant U.S. attorney in the Cental District of California where he defended federal tort claims cases. During this time he was a member of the Los Angeles County Bar Association, Association of Business Trial Lawyers, and American Board of Trial Advocates. He was appointed to the municipal court by Governor Pete Wilson in 1995 and then the superior court in 1998. In 2022, he attended the Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution at Pepperdine University before retiring from the bench and joining Judicate West. His hobbies include playing the banjo, mandolin, guitar, and ukulele, as well as bicycling and skiing.