My name is Aaron Hawbaker and I am running for City Council for the 4th Ward.  I am a transplant from Des Moines to Cedar Falls, but have now lived here more than thirty years.  I arrived in Cedar Falls in 1986 as a student at UNI where I majored in political science and competed on the debate team. At UNI, I also met my wife, Becky, a Cedar Falls native.  We married, then pursued graduate studies at the University of Iowa, where I earned my law degree.  We returned to make our home in Cedar Falls in 1994, raising three daughters and enjoying the great quality of life our city offers ever since. 

Professionally, I  practiced law in several local private practices until 2004 when I joined the State Public Defender system. I was first hired to work in the Waterloo Office, then became the Supervisor of the Marshalltown Office in 2008, then the Supervisor of the Waterloo Adult Office in 2010 where I remain.  

I have been active in many service opportunities that exist in my work, first having served a number of years as the President of the Public Defender Association of Iowa and a number of groups focused on developing new legal policy.  I served on the Iowa Bar Association Jury Instruction Committee,  the Iowa Supreme Court Advisory Committee for Criminal Procedure, the Iowa Supreme Court Criminal Procedure Task Force, and the Iowa Supreme Court Rules of Evidence Substantive Review Task Force. Finally, I  served as an expert panelist for the American Bar Association Standing Committee on Legal Aid and Indigent Defense, the National Center for State Courts, Lawyer Hanlon, and the RAND Corporation National Workload Study on indigent defense workload standards.  I am currently a member of the Iowa Association for Justice Criminal Law core group.  In each of these, I worked collaboratively with a diverse group with different views on complex issues to successfully reach consensus and solve problems.

In my daily legal defense work, I am often involved in extremely serious and emotional matters.  I must digest and understand volumes of complex information from many perspectives and to communicate effectively with many stakeholders. I believe I have been able to navigate those difficult circumstances with professionalism, skill, grace, and an understanding of the concerns of all involved.  This temperament informs my work and aids in my service work and has enabled me to work across many aisles between competing parties and competing governmental entities. 

All of this experience has uniquely prepared me to represent your needs on the City Council and I will work tirelessly to make Cedar Falls an even better place to live, learn, work, and play.