Machaela Hoctor

Machaela M. Hoctor’s practice focuses on civil litigation.  Ms. Hoctor’s litigation experience includes cases involving  fraud, unfair business practice claims, breach of contract disputes, real property disputes, code enforcement matters and a wide variety of tort claims.

Prior to joining Moscone, Emblidge & Quadra, Ms. Hoctor was employed by the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office.  As a Deputy City Attorney, Ms. Hoctor successfully sued the most notorious criminal street gang in the City of San Francisco and won the City’s first gang injunction.  She also successfully sued the largest apartment management company in the United States and with the proceeds helped create a new Boys and Girls Club in the Bayview/Hunters Point area of San Francisco.  At the City Attorney’s Office, Ms. Hoctor handled many other code enforcement matters and sat as a Commissioner on the Graffiti Advisory Board, providing policy advice and guidance to the Mayor and the Board of Supervisors.

Ms. Hoctor also was an Assistant District Attorney for the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office, where she litigated many cases through trial and handled a wide variety of matters, from misdemeanors to serious violent felonies.

Ms. Hoctor graduated Order of the Coif from Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California at Berkeley and Summa Cum Laude from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, majoring in Journalism and Political Science.  Prior to becoming an attorney, Ms. Hoctor wrote for a variety of publications, including The New York Times.  Her Comment, Domestic Violence As A Crime Against the State: The Need for Mandatory Arrest in California, was published in the California Law Review in May 1997.
 
Ms. Hoctor is the founder and President of The Alchemy Project, a non-profit organization dedicated to improving the lives of disadvantaged children through the transformative process of writing.

email: