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Cris Santos is an experienced, bilingual litigator who practices in federal and state courts. He counsels and represents companies and individuals at all stages of civil and criminal proceedings, including investigations, litigation, and appeals.
Cris began his legal career as an honors trial attorney for the U.S. Department of Labor, Office of the Solicitor. In that role, Cris prosecuted federal enforcement actions across the western U.S., with a focus on cases in California, Hawaii, and Arizona. In 2019, he received a Secretary of Labor Honor Award for his role in securing a $4.2 million settlement in a wage and hour case involving over 800 Southern California car wash workers.
After four years at the DOL, Cris served as a shared law clerk in the Central District of California with an emphasis on cases assigned to District Judges Virginia A. Phillips, Otis D. Wright II, Fernando M. Olguin, Michael W. Fitzgerald, and André Birotte Jr. He also completed a two-year clerkship with Magistrate Judge Sheri Pym in Riverside, CA.
Cris earned his J.D. from NYU School of Law, where he was a Latinx Rights Scholar, a notes editor for the NYU Law Review, and a student advocate in the Immigrant Rights Clinic. He was also a teaching assistant for Professor (now Dean) Troy A. McKenzie's civil procedure class and co-chair of the Latinx Law Students Association. In his free time, Cris is active in the Federal Bar Association and enjoys mentoring immigrant students and supporting animal rights causes.
