Susana Lorenzo-Giguere

Since joining the United States Department of Justice in 1991, Susana Lorenzo-Giguere has served as an attorney in civil rights and criminal cases, international policy, and international cooperation in criminal cases. However, Lorenzo-Giguere’s most prominent work has been serving on the government’s legal team in minority language voting rights cases. In 2005, Susana Lorenzo-Giguere received the Walter W. Barnett Memorial Award, which honors attorneys in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division for legal achievement. Lorenzo-Giguere has also received awards from the Navajo Board of Election Supervisors and the Navajo Election Administration of the Navajo Nation, and the Vietnamese Federation of San Diego, and letters of commendation from the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, the United States Department of State, and the Office of the Governor of Florida. As an attorney for the Department of Justice, Susana Lorenzo-Giguere has also worked on a variety of disability rights issues, and matters involving international cooperation in mutual legal assistance, provisional arrests, and extraditions. Some of Lorenzo-Giguere’s most prominent voting rights cases have involved the access to voting materials and information for speakers of Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese, Tagalog, Korean, Navajo, and Keres. Susana Lorenzo-Giguere was part of the government’s legal team in various cases, such as the United States of America v. the City of San Diego, California, the United States v. the City of Walnut, California, the United States v. the City of Boston, the United States v. Cibola County, New Mexico, and United States v. Socorro County, New Mexico, in which she assisted the government in making the case that these localities had not adequately met the needs of their minority language voters as required under the law. Lorenzo-Giguere also served as an advisor, trainer, and delegate for the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs in NDI programs to support democratic institutions and safeguard elections in Eastern Europe and Africa. She received her Bachelor of Arts from Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, and her legal degree from the University of New Hampshire School of Law. (http://law.unh.edu/assets/pdf/magazine-04-winter-vol8-no1-complete.pdf (pg 17-20); http://law.unh.edu/assets/pdf/magazine-06-winter-vol10-no1-40-44.pdf)