A former magisterial district judge in Northampton who served as a prosecutor in the Lehigh County District Attorney's Office before her election to the minor judiciary in 2009 has returned to the county prosecutor's office.

Diane M. Marakovits of Northampton was named a senior deputy district attorney to fill a vacant position. Marakovits started in the office on Jan. 5, 2015.

Marakovits served Allen Township and the boroughs of Northampton and North Catasauqua as magisterial district judge for District Court 03-2-07 since January 2010. As a magisterial district judge, her duties included issuing search and arrest warrants and emergency protection-from-abuse orders; reviewing and approving criminal complaints; conducting preliminary arraignments and preliminary hearings in criminal cases, presiding over judgments in civil and landlord/tenant cases; conducting summary traffic and non-traffic hearings; and hearing truancy cases in the Northampton and Catasauqua school districts.

Marakovits was a chief deputy district attorney in the Lehigh County District Attorney's Office from February 1997 to March 2002 and from July 2002 to December 2009. She was a member of the homicide, violent crimes and firearms units.

Marakovits was a deputy county solicitor in the Lehigh County Department of Law from March 2002 to July 2002. She represented the Office of Children and Youth Services at detention and dependency hearings.

She was an associate with the law office of McQuaide, Blasko, Schwartz, Fleming & Faulkner Inc. in State College from April 1995 to January 1997. She was an assistant public defender in the Centre County Public Defender's Office in Bellefonte from July 1992 to April 1995.

Marakovits obtained a bachelor's degree in administration of justice from Pennsylvania State University and received her law degree from Washington College of Law at American University in Washington, D.C.