Holly Hancock

Judge Holly Hancock won the county-wide election for her judicial office in Los Angeles on November 8, 2022. More than 1.1 million voters selected the former Deputy Public Defender of Los Angeles County.  This election made her the first Deputy Public Defender (of two)  elected as an LA Superior Court judge.  And she is the first Black female Public Defender elected to the bench in the largest county in the country.  As Judge of the Los Angeles Superior Court, Judge Hancock has served at Metropolitan Courthouse in Traffic Trials and currently serves at the Inglewood Courthouse in misdemeanor trials.

Judge Hancock’s career as a Public Defender was spent as a trial deputy in misdemeanors and felonies.  As an attorney she has tried 65 jury trials.  She had won all but two of the misdemeanor trials, and had won acquittals or reduced charges in 80% of the felony trials she has tried.  Judge Hancock last worked in a supervisory position as Deputy In Charge of the Criminal Record Clearing Unit of the Public Defender’s Office. In this position, Judge Hancock prepared and organized expungement events for those who are unhoused or housing insecure in Los Angeles County. 

Judge Hancock graduated from Southwestern Law School.  A Chicago native, she is a graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign majoring in Rhetoric:  The Art of the Argument.  She served as the editor of ‘The Griot,’ a black student newspaper.  She worked on the yearbook committee and pledged Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority and she is currently a member of its Alpha Gamma Omega graduate Chapter.

After graduating from college, Judge Hancock served the public and her co-workers in her capacity as a flight attendant and as an elected official for the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA-CWA).

Her many positions for the 3000 member Los Angeles Local Council 12, included Grievance Chair, Local Council Representative, Secretary, and Vice President.  Until her election, Judge Hancock continued her connection to the community by holding expungement clinics for the NAACP in Los Angeles County, while serving as Chair of the Legal Redress Committee of the Venice-Santa Monica branch. 

Judge Hancock graduated from Emerge CA in 2021, a democratic training ground for women.  She has served her legal community as past president of the Black Public Defender’s Association, past board member of Black Women Lawyers and steward of Local 148, LAC Public Defenders’ Union.  Additionally, she educated others on community issues as the proud member and committee co-chair of a graduate chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. Finally, she has joined and canvassed for other judicial candidates as a member of the Black Women’s Democratic Club and as a member of the unofficial Defenders of Justice slate in the last election cycle.

Judge Hancock is the proud mother of Chloe, a spring 2022 graduate of Loyola Marymount University.  Post-election, she looks forward to mentoring law students and attorneys.