Magistrate Judge Maria Valdez is a United States Magistrate Judge for the Northern District of Illinois. Judge Valdez was appointed to the federal magistrate bench in May of 2005. From 2016 to 2020, she served as the Chief Magistrate Judge for the district.

Judge Valdez received her undergraduate degree from the University of California at Los Angeles and her law degree from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law. She began her legal career in 1988 as a federal public defender in Los Angeles, California, representing indigent criminal defendants. Judge Valdez also worked as a senior associate at the law firm of Hughes, Socol, Piers, Resnick & Dym in Chicago, where she specialized in federal civil rights litigation. Prior to becoming a federal magistrate judge, she was the Chicago Regional Counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), concentrating her trial and appellate practice in the areas of constitutional law and the federal Voting Rights Act.

In her role as a Magistrate Judge, Judge Valdez has worked as a mediator assisting thousands of parties to resolve all aspects of federal civil litigation, including intellectual property cases, contract disputes, employment matters, and civil rights issues, among others. Judge Valdez has also participated on countless panels discussing federal civil procedure and practice with an emphasis on electronic discovery-related matters.