City Attorney
Hahn served from 1985 to 2001 as Los Angeles City Attorney, an office of 358 attorneys, support staff of 346, with branch offices in 21 locations citywide. As City Attorney, Hahn worked to rid LA's neighborhoods of gang activity through the use of gang injunctions. He was involved in crafting state legislation regarding gang enforcement by writing the Street Terrorism Enforcement and Prevention Act.
During Hahn's tenure as City Attorney, he led the litigation to stop the Joe Camel ad campaign and reached a settlement of 312 million dollars for the city. He then created the Tobacco Enforcement Project to prevent the sale of tobacco to minors.
He re-established a Domestic Violence Unit and sponsored over 30 pieces of relevant legislation, ensuring that California has tough domestic violence laws.
Special units in the office included AIDS/HIV Discrimination, Environmental Protection, Housing Enforcement, Consumer Protection, Special Enforcement, and Governmental Law and Enforcement. He also managed a Dispute Resolution Program. Aside from the special units, the office was divided into a criminal branch and a civil branch. Hahn required all of his attorneys to receive ethnic and religious tolerance training from the Museum of Tolerance.
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