Tara E. Bell Hawkins

Tara Bell Hawkins' legal career has spanned 20 years. She is a skilled appellate advocate as well as an experienced trial lawyer with recognized courtroom advocacy abilities. Her focus at Hawkins Legal is criminal defense representation and family law. Shortly after graduating from Tulane University School of Law in 1997, she embarked on a career in litigation and appeals. For more than ten years she worked as a corporate defense attorney at large Louisiana-based law firms. Ms. Hawkins discovered her passion for criminal law after embarking on a career as an assistant district attorney. During her career as a felony prosecutor, she successfully mastered prosecution of the most serious felony cases, including sex crimes, murders, and other complex, high-profile crimes. Because of her success and widely-recognized talents as a skilled trial lawyer, she was selected to lead her office's felony prosecution staff as its Chief Felony Prosecutor. Hawkins' years of experience as a prosecutor heightened her sensitivity to the many inequities that still remain in the criminal justice system. She responded by creating a law firm that provides preeminent legal representation to individuals accused of crimes throughout Louisiana.

• Sole Practitioner

• Calcasieu Parish District Attorney's office, Chief felony Prosecutor, 2009 - 2016
• Louisiana court of appeal, Third circuit, Administrative General counsel, 2005 - 2009
• Languages
• English

• Louisiana, 1997
• U.S. District Court Middle District of Louisiana, 1998
• U.S. District Court Eastern District of Louisiana, 1998
• U.S. District Court Western District of Louisiana, 1998
• U.S. Court of Appeals 5th Circuit, 1998
• Fraternities and Sororities
• Delta Sigma Theta, Inc.