Honorable John McCabe was appointed a Magistrate Judge by Chief Judge Rufus J. King III on October 21, 2002. Judge McCabe was born in New York and raised in New Jersey. He graduated from Duke University in 1980 with a degree in economics, and received his J.D., cum laude, from Tulane University Law School in 1986.

He is formerly a staff attorney at the Legal Aid Society for the District of Columbia, and represented indigent clients in domestic relations and public benefits proceedings. From 1990 to 1998, Judge McCabe was an Assistant Corporation Counsel with the Office of the Corporation Counsel (now the Office of the Attorney General) in Washington, DC. During his tenure at the Office of the Corporation Counsel, he handled child abuse and neglect matters, was chief of the Domestic Violence Section, and handled civil litigation in Superior Court and the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.