Justice Hoffstadt serves on the California Court of Appeal. He previously served as a trial judge on the Los Angeles Superior Court, helped to run the Issues & Appeals practice group in the Los Angeles office of Jones Day, served as an Assistant United States Attorney, worked as a policy advisor in the Office of Policy Development of the United States Department of Justice, and served as a law clerk to Associate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor as well as the late Ninth Circuit Judge Cynthia Holcomb Hall.

He graduated first in his class from UCLA School of Law, and his undergraduate degree is from California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. Justice Hoffstadt is a faculty member of the B.E. Witkin Judicial College (for newly appointed and elected California trial judges), regularly teaches appellate and trial judges on a variety of subjects, and since 1999 has taught law students as an adjunct professor at USC School of Law, Loyola Law School, and George Washington University Law School. He has taught evidence, constitutional criminal procedure, trial advocacy, and post-conviction criminal procedure.

Justice Hoffstadt is the author of California Criminal Discovery (5th ed. 2015 and 6th ed. 2020), has published several law review articles, and is a regular contributor to the Daily Journal. He currently chairs the California Judicial Council’s Criminal Law Advisory Committee, which helps formulate the California judicial branch’s formal positions on pending state legislation. He is also a member of the American Law Institute.