Erik Hahn is Professor of Law (Social Security Law and Health Law) at the Zittau/Görlitz University oAS (Faculty of Social Sciences) and serves as Deputy Director of the Görlitz Institute for Health, Aging, Work and Technology. From 2016 to 2024, he also lectured in this role at the International University Institute of the Technical University of Dresden (Central European Campus Nisa with the Technical University of Liberec). In addition, he is Co-Scientific Director of the LL.M. program "Medical Law" at the Dresden International University (affiliated institute of the Dresden University of Technology), Affiliate at the Faculty of Medicine Carl Gustav Carus (Dresden University of Technology) and long-term Visiting Professor of Law (EU Law, Health and Social Security Law) at the Faculty of Social Sciences of the Rīga Stradiņš University.

After studying law at the Universities of Leipzig and Halle-Wittenberg and graduating in 2008, Erik Hahn obtained his doctorate from the Faculty of Law at the Leipzig University in 2010. Subsequently, he completed his legal clerkship and then joined the judiciary of the Free State of Saxony. After serving as a public prosecutor in Leipzig and as a judge at the Dresden Social Court, he was appointed to a professorship at the North German University of Law in Hildesheim in 2015, which he held until his transfer to Görlitz in 2016. In 2021, he received another doctorate from the Faculty of Medicine of the Dresden University of Technology with a thesis on a topic related to the history of Health Law. In 2022, he habilitated at the Faculty of Business, Law and Social Sciences of the Brandenburg University of Technology with a publication on legal issues of the digitalisation of the treatment relationship and received the university teaching qualification in the fields of "Public Law, in particular Medical and Social Security Law, and European Law". In the same year he was appointed as judge at the Higher Social Court of the State of Saxony (Court of Appeal).

Erik Hahn has held visiting professorships, scholarships and fellowships in the United States (Harvard Law School), Italy (Università degli Studi Roma Tre), Latvia (Rīga Stradiņš University und Banku Augstskola), Greece (International Hellenic University) and China (National Judges College of the People's Republic of China). He is a member of the European Institute of Social Security (Leuven). His research focuses on the Law of Social Work and Services (including the law of social and care professionals), the entire field of Social Security Law (including Basic Security/Social assistance, Social Insurance Law, EU Coordination of Social Security and the Law of Child and Youth Welfare), Medical and Health Law (with a special focus on digitalization and European legal issues), and social legal issues of housing. He also deals with the law of closed accommodation in psychiatric institutions and compulsory treatment, the Guardianship Law, legal issues of psychiatric care and aspects of sustainability in the field of Health and Social Law.

In addition to his research and teaching activities, Erik Hahn dedicates himself to intensive exchange with practitioners and participates in various interdisciplinary projects, commissions and working groups. He has practical experience from his work as chairman, deputy chairman and honorary member of various state committees, arbitration boards and offices in the area of the German Social Code V (statutory health insurance) and the Federal Act on the Nursing Professions. Furthermore, he is also a member of the Ethics Committee of the Medical Association of Saxony (responsible for the prior approval of clinical trials) and a member of the working group "Physicians and Lawyers" of the Association of the Scientific Medical Societies in Germany (AWMF). He has written legal opinions for various ministries, companies and other institutions in the social and health care sector, occasionally acts as an arbitrator or judge in arbitration proceedings and as a lecturer in the training of specialist lawyers and judges.