About Shawn
Shawn Barnett built his legal foundation through a sequence of degrees and courtroom training that show a steady focus on advocacy. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in history from Thomas Edison State College in 2010. He completed his J.D. at Golden Gate University School of Law in 2013 and followed that with an LL.M. in Trial and Appellate Advocacy from Loyola University Chicago School of Law in 2014. The graduate work in Chicago added formal trial technique and appellate procedure to the academic record he had already established in San Francisco and earlier studies.
Barnett’s early career mixed public service and clerking roles. In 2006 he served in the Office of Emergency Management while in the United States Air Force. He spent 2011 as a law clerk in the Contra Costa County District Lawyer’s office. In 2012 he worked as a misdemeanor department law clerk at the United States Lawyer’s Office. After finishing law school he joined the City of Chicago as an Assistant Corporation Counsel in 2013, assigned to the Federal Civil Rights Litigation Department. That position placed him on matters that intersect municipal law and federal civil rights claims. By 2018 he was practicing as a lawyer at Hale & Monico.
His professional trajectory combines courtroom training, government litigation and clerkship experience. The LL.M. training in trial and appellate advocacy suggests emphasis on litigation skills, and his work at the City of Chicago tied him directly to civil rights defense for a municipality. He is admitted to practice in Illinois and in several federal venues, including the U.S. Courts for the Central and Northern Districts of Illinois, the Southern District of Illinois, the Eastern District of Wisconsin and the Seventh Circuit. That range of admissions allows him to appear in both trial and appellate federal matters as well as state-court proceedings in Illinois.
Barnett holds membership in the Chicago Bar Association and maintains other professional memberships. He has practiced in both public and private settings, moving from government roles into a private firm environment. At Hale & Monico LLC he works across the firm’s offices and handles litigation that can span state and federal jurisdictions. He brings courtroom training and municipal civil-rights experience to his current work.
He now handles litigation in federal and state courts, representing clients from the trial level through appellate filings.
