Erin Hawley

Erin Morrow Hawley is an American lawyer and the wife of Senator Josh Hawley. She is known for her conservative political work and her affiliation with Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF).

Education
Hawley attended Texas A&M University, where she studied animal science. After college, she interned for the House Committee on Agriculture which led to her interest in regulatory law. She attended Yale Law School, where she served as a Coker Fellow in Constitutional Law and worked on The Yale Law Journal.

Legal career
She currently serves as a senior counsel and vice president as a member at the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF). Before working with ADF, Hawley practiced law with several law firms located in Washington D.C. which included: Kirkland and Ellis, Bancroft PLLC, and King & Spalding.

Hawley previously worked as a law clerk for the U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts as well as for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson. She also served as a counsel to Attorney General Michael Mukasey in the Department of Justice.

Aside from her law career, she also immersed herself in academics as she taught at the University of Missouri as an associate professor, taught constitutional litigation, federal income tax, tax policy, and agricultural law. She also worked at the Kinder Institute for Constitutional Democracy where she taught constitutional law as a senior fellow. In addition to her senior counsel position at ADF, she is an active member of the Missouri and District of Columbia bars.

Political positions and activism
Hawley has participated in numerous court cases, all regarding rights and freedom. In 2014, Hawley and others sued Kamala Harris, former California Attorney General, over hen-laying laws. Hawley and her colleagues argued that the Californian rule which granted egg-bearing hens more space in their cages, was a "blue state imposing its values and rules on Missouri farmers."

Hawley is well known for her opposition to abortion. In 2021, she helped work on the landmark case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, which later overturned Roe v. Wade. She presented a case to the Supreme Court in 2024 against the FDA's approval of mifepristone, stating that the medication is a danger to women. Hawley argued that "federal approval of the abortion pill went forward without enough consideration of possible side effects and dangers, and that subsequent changes to enable greater access ignored health risks to women".

Personal life
She met her husband, Senator Josh Hawley, while they were both working as law clerks for Chief Justice Roberts in 2007. They married in 2010. The Hawleys have 3 children. Hawley is a Christian who believes she is called to "rest in the knowledge that God is sovereign."