Laboni Hoq

Laboni Hoq is an experienced civil rights lawyer who founded Hoq Law in 2020. Her practice draws from her over twenty-year career successfully litigating high-profile cases on behalf of workers, immigrants and those seeking government accountability. Her work has tackled some of the most pressing civil rights issues of the day, and has garnered both significant media attention as well as awards and distinctions.

Ms. Hoq is lead counsel in James v. City of South Pasadena, a case against a police department that violated the Constitutional rights of peaceful Black Lives Matter protesters when it acted in complicity with White supremacist vigilantes who perpetrated hate crimes against them. She has also litigated several cases demanding government transparency about controversial policies. Ms. Hoq was the lead attorney in Hamdan v. U.S. Dept. of Justice, a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) case that won disclosure of documents concerning the U.S. government’s role in the detention and torture of a Muslim American man in an overseas “blacksite.”

Ms. Hoq’s notable workers’ rights cases include Bragg v. Pacific Maritime Association, a pregnancy discrimination class action on behalf of longshore workers at the the Ports of Los Angeles/Long Beach, the country’s largest port complex. In EEOC/Abdon v. Delano Regional Medical Center, Ms. Hoq successfully challenged an English-only policy that resulted in $1 million in damages and a 3-year consent decree —the largest settlement of a language discrimination case in the the hospital industry. She has also litigated several human trafficking cases, including Alabado v French Concepts, Inc. which resulted in a $15 million default judgment against wealthy foreign investors who fled the country.

Among the notable immigrants’ rights cases Ms. Hoq has litigated is Gomez v. Trump, a case which resulted in summary judgement against the Trump administration for its policy that effectively ended the 2020 Diversity visa program. The case resulted in over 13,000 diversity lottery winners regaining their once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to immigrate to the U.S. Ms. Hoq was also class counsel in Chhoeun v. Homan and Trinh v. Homan, two cases that stopped the Trump administration’s policies of targeting refugees from Cambodia and Vietnam for prolonged detention and summary deportation without due process.

Prior to starting her own firm, Ms. Hoq was the Litigation Director at Asian Americans Advancing Justice – Los Angeles for eight years, where she directed the organization’s impact litigation unit. Prior to that, Ms. Hoq was a litigator at two prominent civil rights law firms in greater Los Angeles – Traber & Voorhees and Schonbrun, DeSimone, Seplow, Harris, Hoffman & Harrison. Prior to practicing civil rights law, Ms. Hoq practiced general civil litigation in the Los Angeles office of the defense firm Sidley Austin LLP.

Ms. Hoq is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley where she graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor’s degree in Political Economy, Cambridge University where she received a Master of Philosophy degree in Development Studies, and Columbia Law School where she received her J.D. After law school, Ms. Hoq was awarded a Fulbright fellowship to clerk on the South African Constitutional Court.