Christy Lopez

Christy E. Lopez is Professor from Practice at Georgetown Law. From 2010 to 2017, Lopez served as a Deputy Chief in the Special Litigation Section of the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice. She directly led the team that investigated the Ferguson Police Department and was a primary drafter of the Ferguson report and negotiator of the Ferguson consent decree. She also led investigations of many other law enforcement agencies, including the Chicago Police Department, the New Orleans Police Department, the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, and the Newark (New Jersey) Police Department. Lopez helped formulate and draft the DOJ statement of interest in the Floyd litigation, challenging the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk practices, as well as DOJ guidance released in 2015 on preventing gender bias in the law enforcement response to sexual assault and domestic violence. In 2016 she was awarded the Flame Award by the National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement (NACOLE) for her long-term commitment to police accountability and civilian oversight. In 2015 Lopez was awarded the Department of Justice’s highest employee honor, the Attorney General’s Exceptional Service award, for her work leading the Ferguson Police Department pattern-or-practice investigation.