MARINA TORRES
WILLKIE, FARR & GALLAGHER LLP, Partner
Former federal prosecutor Marina Torres, who joined Willkie, Farr & Gallagher’s Century City office this year, has had an eventful career so far.
Appointed to the Department of Homeland Security by President Barack Obama, Torres helped craft the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) executive order, which protected those brought here undocumented as children from deportation. After that, she worked for six years as an assistant U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C., and in the Central District of California. She now handles white collar criminal defense and other litigation matters for Willkie.
In 2022, Torres was a primary candidate for Los Angeles city attorney.
How did you discover your interest in law? And how did you arrive at your specialty?
Growing up, I had no professionals in my family — none. I’m first-generation. My family had come over from Mexico, undocumented, with at best a grade-school education. I saw how hard my family worked and I believed in the promise of a better life through education. Gradually, through my studies at Berkeley and Stanford, I saw how the law would be a tool used for good and for justice. My path to criminal work was a bit more specific; I got a firsthand view of the criminal justice system when my teenage brother was charged and convicted in an extreme case of prosecutorial overreach. It showed me how powerful a prosecutor could be: they, and they alone, decide whether or not to charge a case, dismiss a case, what penalty to recommend and so forth. As a federal prosecutor, I got to be a powerful advocate and role model for those who most needed their voices heard. Whether it was simply pronouncing the defendant’s name correctly, encouraging witnesses to come forward by speaking to them in their native language, or flagging a victim’s immigration issue for the court, it was an honor to represent my community from the government’s table.
Tell us about the most noteworthy or interesting case (or cases) that you’ve been involved with.
One of my last criminal trials as a prosecutor involved a man accused of orchestrating a wide-ranging mortgage fraud scheme. He had victimized hundreds of people, many of whom were already in a difficult position before the defendant swindled them further. Many of the victims lost their homes and life savings from his crimes. The case itself took more than 10 years to see the inside of a courtroom, had over a million pages of discovery and had a lot of challenges, but successfully prosecuting him and helping the victims achieve a bit of closure was absolutely worth it.
Are any new regulations or pieces of legislation in Los Angeles or California creating new or more work for you and your practice?
One development affecting the entire country is a new DOJ policy recently rolled out that aims to ramp up the financial punishment of misbehaving corporate executives. It’s both a stick and a carrot: the DOJ’s Clawback Pilot Program requires companies entering into a corporate resolution to implement a compensation system promoting compliance, but it also rewards corporations that attempt to claw back payments to law-breaking executives and employees. It’s an evolving area of the law and it will be fascinating to watch how this will be implemented by DOJ.
What do you envision as your next step, career-wise?
I just got here! When I joined Willkie earlier this year, it was fresh off the campaign trail and almost a decade in government public service. I’m happy to report that I’ve found the law firm environment to be incredibly stimulating and challenging, enabling me to grow further as an attorney. The business development piece of being a partner is also new and exciting (and surprisingly fun). Not sure what the future holds, but I’m grateful that my law degree has enabled me to step into such a wide variety of legal jobs across the industry.
How did the pandemic affect your career, and what do you think is on the horizon for the legal industry?
I was juggling my job as a prosecutor with fundraising for political office during most of the pandemic. Both suffered from our collective inability to gather in person — there were zero trials and Zoom fundraisers just didn’t have the same appeal for donors. But, like the rest of the world, we pivoted and adjusted. And I think it’s fundamentally changed the future for the legal industry in that we’ve grown to appreciate the organic collaboration that can only happen in-person while also adjusting for (and accepting) increased remote work. That hybrid flexibility is key for being able to recruit and retain the best and the brightest attorneys; I also expect it will continue to help diversity efforts in our industry.
What is the biggest challenge that comes with your job?
Completely new to me is the practice of business development and bringing in clients. Very different than anything I did either in politics or in government. It’s exciting to build something from the ground up and tap into a different set of skills than I had before. Willkie has a great reputation, outstanding litigators and a growing team in L.A. that I’ve really enjoyed being a part of since I joined. I’m grateful to have had so much support and integration already in this effort.
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How has your political appointment impacted your career?
As an appointee under President Obama, I helped craft the DACA policy and helped change the lives of young “Dreamers” who, like me, had lived with the constant fear of deportation and family separation. These were people who had almost the same story as me, but had just been born on the other side of the border and brought over to the U.S. as young children. It was impossible not to make that job personal. The experience also further reaffirmed the value and versatility of my law degree, which represented all my hard work to get to this point. I was proud to use it to help shape federal policy and help so many others who aspired to achieve their dreams in the U.S.
