Jessica M. Hathaway

Jessica M. Hathaway is an experienced trial and appellate attorney with a practice that has spanned complex criminal and civil litigation, as well as public service leadership. She brings more than two decades of courtroom experience at every level of the state and federal court system, including extensive work before the Supreme Court of Missouri and Missouri Court of Appeals.

Jessica most recently served in leadership roles with the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney, both as Director of Conviction Integrity and Chief of the Conviction and Incident Review Units.  In those roles, Jessica led investigations and prosecutions involving alleged police misconduct, excessive force, public corruption, and wrongful convictions. She also served as an assistant prosecuting attorney, handling a variety of matters in St. Louis County Circuit Court, including homicide, violent felony, and domestic violence cases.

Before becoming a prosecutor, Jessica was an attorney with the firm of Rosenblum Schwartz Fry & Johnson, where she managed the firm’s appellate and post-conviction practice. Notably, in 2020, Jessica was part of a team of lawyers that obtained a rare, high-profile judgment in the Circuit Court of Cole County, Missouri, exonerating and freeing a man who had been wrongly convicted as a teenager.

Jessica began her career in public service as an assistant public defender in the City of St. Louis, where she spent more than a decade representing indigent people. She has briefed and argued eleven cases before the Supreme Court of Missouri, and handled hundreds of cases in the Missouri Court of Appeals and United States Court of Appeals, as well as dozens of bench and jury trials. Her expertise in appellate litigation was recognized with the David J. Dixon Appellate Advocacy Award from the Missouri Bar Foundation in 2014, and the Duncan Award given by the Missouri Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers in 2012.

Earlier in her career, Jessica spent two years as a judicial law clerk to the Honorable John C. Holstein of the Supreme Court of Missouri, as well as working as an attorney with Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner, where she advised on professional responsibility and legal ethics across a global law firm.

Jessica served the community for nearly a decade as a member of the Board of Directors for the Dutchtown South Community Corporation, a nonprofit in the City of St. Louis focused on affordable housing, neighborhood safety, and youth engagement. She also founded and directed for many years the successful youth chess program at St. Margaret of Scotland Catholic Parish, where she is a member.  

Born and raised on a small farm in Buchanan County, Missouri, Jessica has been a resident of the City of St. Louis since 2002.  She earned her Juris Doctor from the University of Missouri School of Law, and holds an undergraduate degree in English, cum laude, from the University of Missouri.

Her practice is defined by rigorous legal analysis, extensive courtroom experience, and a deep commitment to justice and public service.

Education

• University of Missouri – Columbia, B.A., in English (honors), cum laude

• University of Missouri – Columbia School of Law, J.D.

Admitted

• Missouri

• Kansas (Inactive)

• United States District Court, Eastern District of Missouri

• United States District Court, Southern District of Illinois

• United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit

• United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit

Honors and Affiliations 

• The Missouri Bar Foundation David J. Dixon Appellate Advocacy Award

• The Missouri Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers Robert Duncan Award for Appellate Excellence

• Women’s Law Association of Greater St. Louis

• Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis

• St. Louis County Bar Association