Shawn P. Hooks is a founding partner of Deal & Hooks, LLC. He is originally from Findlay, Ohio. He attended Miami University where he received a Bachelor’s Degree in History, while minoring in Vocal Performance. He moved to Dayton and, having received academic scholarships, he attended the University of Dayton School of Law where he received several awards for Civil Trial Practice and Basic Real Estate Transactions. Additionally, he was an active participant in the school’s Mock Trial and Moot Court programs.
Since becoming licensed Shawn has focused his practice on litigation and spending time in the court room. He has advocated for people in both civil and criminal courts throughout Ohio. He is licensed to practice in all Ohio State courts as well as in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio and the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He is certified by the Ohio Commission on the Appointment of Counsel for Indigent Defendants in Capital Cases to handle Death Penalty Appeals and to Co-Counsel during death penalty trials.
Shawn has won significant state and federal appeals on issues ranging from coerced confessions to sentencing errors. He has tried multiple cases from misdemeanors to felonies, business construction cases to simple landlord tenant cases. He has handled things as simple as disorderly conduct cases to murder and RICO cases. He won a landmark case involving international treaty law in the federal court, the first Hague Convention case tried in front of Judge Rose in Dayton, Ohio. The case was appealed in the U.S. Court of Appeals where he once again won. He devotes significant amount of his time to family law and acts as a Guardian ad Litem in juvenile court cases, where the Court frequently appoints him to investigate situations and report his recommendations on what is the child’s best interest for the Court to make its decision.
He is also active in the legal community. Shawn has lectured at several Continuing Legal Education Seminars on topics about criminal law practice. He is on the Board of Trustees for the Dayton Bar Association. Additonally, he serves as the Chair of the Public Service & Congeniality Committee and as the Vice-Chair of the Criminal Law & Its Enforcement Committee on the Dayton Bar Association. He is also involved in the Greene County and Ohio State Bar Associations as well as a member of the Ohio Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
Shawn resides in the Historic South Park neighborhood in Dayton and is actively involved in local community service organizations as well as an award winning actor in community theater productions across the Dayton area.