Christopher Hawthorne

Clinical Professor Christopher Hawthorne is the Director of Loyola Law School's Juvenile Innocence & Fair Sentencing (JIFS) Clinic, which represents incarcerated persons who were convicted as children and are serving life sentences in California prisons. Working with his staff and students, Hawthorne has litigated over 300 post-conviction cases, leading to the resentencing and release of over 100 incarcerated persons. 

Hawthorne has served on George Gascón's District Attorney Transition Team (Resentencing) and is on the Advisory Board of the Pacific Juvenile Defender Center.

Before joining the Loyola faculty, Hawthorne was a solo practitioner specializing in appellate criminal defense. Immediately after law school, he was an associate with O'Melveny & Myers, practicing in their White Collar Criminal Defense Practice Group. He has also written and produced motion pictures, for which he won the Writer's Guild of America Award, the Prix de Critiques at the Festival Avoriaz, and the Silver Cairo at the Cairo Film Festival. One of his films was also nominated for an Emmy Award for Best Family Script.  Hawthorne graduated magna cum laude from Loyola Law School, where he was a Sayre Macneil Scholar and a Note & Comment Editor on the Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review.