Hyelim Cho is an Associate in the Los Angeles office of Manning Kass. She is a member of the Governmental Entity Liability team. 

Ms. Cho received her Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Sociology from Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. She was named to the Dean's List for outstanding academic achievement and was elected and served as class president for Emory University Student Government Association. Ms. Cho received her Juris Doctor from the University of Illinois College of Law, where she graduated cum laude. She received honors distinction in Legal Writing and Analysis and the CALI Excellence for the Future Award in Trademark and Unfair Competition for achieving the highest grade in her class, for which she later served as a teaching assistant. Ms. Cho was one of three students selected to participate in the Advanced Domestic Violence Clinic, where she represented victims of domestic violence in court as a 711-law license student counsel.

Ms. Cho was a judicial extern in the Champaign County Circuit Court for the Honorable Jeffrey B. Ford, where she researched and drafted a memo on a $65 million business tax evasion and fraud case that was subsequently used in the Illinois Appellate Court’s decision.

Before joining the firm, Ms. Cho worked as a Deputy District Attorney for the Ventura County District Attorney’s Office and as an Assistant State’s Attorney for the Cook County (Chicago) and Macon County State’s Attorney’s Offices. Ms. Cho has extensive courtroom experience handling hearings, motions, and both misdemeanor and felony jury trials, including numerous high-profile felony cases, such as a murder involving child neglect, attempted murder with a firearm where no gun was found, child sex crimes, and aggravated cruelty to animals.

Most recently, Ms. Cho served as the 21st Visiting Scholar at the Ministry of Justice in South Korea. During her tenure, she provided lectures to Korean federal prosecutors on the American jury trial system, trial strategies, investigation techniques, and rules of evidence. She also published a paper on criminal defendants' statements and constitutional issues in the Legal Studies Journal of the Korean Institute of Justice.

Ms. Cho regularly serves as a judge for regional and national college and high school moot court and mock trial competitions, and she participates as a guest speaker on career panels at the University of Illinois College of Law.

Ms. Cho is admitted to the California State Bar and the Illinois State Bar. Her publications include “The United States Criminal Procedure: Obtaining Criminal Defendant’s Statements and Confessions, and Their Admissibility in Criminal Courts” in the Legal Studies Journal of the Korean Institute of Justice, South Korea.

Ms. Cho is fluent in Korean.