Hometown: Mexico City, Mexico & Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Education: B.S., Marquette University (Speech Pathology, French)
Employment: Judicial Law Clerk to Judge Micaela Alvarez of the U.S. District
Court for the Southern District of Texas
Law School Activities:
- Article Editor, Symposium Editor, and Diversity Chair of the Wisconsin Law Review
- 2007 Wisconsin Law Review Alumni Association Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Wisconsin Law Review
- UW Law School Moot Court Board
- Outstanding Coach of 2007, Phillip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition
- Executive Board Member of the Latina/o Law Student Association (LLSA)
- LLSA Outstanding First Year Leader Award
- Fluent in Spanish; proficient in French
Claudia Quiroz is beginning her legal
career in Laredo, Texas as a judicial law clerk for Judge Micaela Alvarez in
the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas.
Claudia is a native of Mexico City, where she lived until her early teenage
years. When she was fourteen, her family packed their bags and cultural identities
and moved to Milwaukee because of her father’s work. It was challenging for
Claudia to overcome language and cultural barriers as a young teenager and assimilate
to a new culture while preserving her identity in the process. This gave Claudia
an awareness of the social and legal implications of being a Latina immigrant
in this country, which subsequently sparked her interest in the law.
After college, Claudia’s interest in the law and her desire to use her multilingual and bicultural skills led her to the Jesuit Volunteers Corps, a group that places volunteers in organizations serving under-represented clients. Claudia was assigned to La Raza Centro Legal, Inc., a community-based legal organization in San Francisco, where she counseled and represented low-income Spanish-speaking employees about their rights in the workplace. Following her year as a volunteer, Claudia remained at La Raza as the senior law legal assistant and subsequently as marketing and development coordinator.
As a law student, Claudia took an active role in the student community. She served on the executive boards of several student organizations and was a competitor and coach for the Jessup International Moot Court team. But it was her work on the Wisconsin Law Review’s Symposium in honor of the 40th Anniversary of Loving v. Virginia (the U.S. Supreme Court case that struck down U.S. antimiscegenation laws) for which she and her co-symposium editor received special recognition from the Wisconsin Law Review’s Alumni Association.
Read more in "An Interview with Claudia Quiroz"