Professor Citlalli Ochoa specializes in international human rights law, social movements, and workers’ rights advocacy. She brings extensive experience as both a legal educator and practitioner, with a deep commitment to advancing social justice through her teaching and community-centered advocacy.

Before joining the Boyd Law, Professor Ochoa taught at American University Washington College of Law, where she was a Practitioner-in-Residence and served as Acting Director of the International Human Rights Law Clinic. In that role, she oversaw students working on advocacy and litigation before international bodies, including the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. Her work also included supervising student attorneys who represented asylum seekers in immigration court and contributed to death penalty abolition efforts.

Previously, Professor Ochoa led the Workers’ Rights Clinic at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles and practiced employment law with Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County. She began her career with the International Justice Resource Center, first as a fellow and later as a staff attorney, advocating for the robust interpretation of human rights law and accountability of human rights oversight mechanisms. 

Professor Ochoa earned her J.D. from UC Irvine School of Law, where she served as Lead Article Editor of the UC Irvine Law Review, and holds a B.A. in Political Science from UC Santa Barbara. Fluent in Spanish, she is dedicated to expanding language access in legal services and empowering students to become effective, equity-driven advocates in both domestic and international contexts.