Victor M. Marquez is the President of the Hispanic National Bar Association. He is the founder and principal of The Marquez Law Group, a boutique firm in downtown San Francisco. Mr. Marquez' practice focuses on real estate transactions, private and public finance, and state and local government relations. He has extensive experience working before administrative, legislative, and executive bodies.

Mr. Marquez has expertise in assisting investor groups with developing commercial, residential, and mixed-use properties. A primary focus of his practice is working with municipalities, and representing private, non-profit and public interests in the finance and construction of mixed-use private/public joint venture development projects. He is also approved counsel for the community development banking departments of Bank of America, Citigroup Global Markets and Silicon Valley Bank.

His litigation experience includes employment, real property, contract and personal injury matters. For five years, Mr. Marquez was the Executive Director of a community law center in San Francisco serving newcomer immigrants and the Latino Community.

In 1987, Mr. Marquez earned his B.A. in Law and Society from the University of California at Santa Barbara, and his J.D. from Santa Clara University School of Law in 1990. He was admitted to the State Bar of California in 1990 and is admitted to practice before the U.S. District Courts of the Central District of California and Northern District of California.

As an immigrant from a small mining town in Mexico, Victor came to the United States without speaking a word of English. Despite this, he became the first from a large family to attend college and then law school. Upon his graduation from law school, Victor went to work for Gordon & Rees, a commercial law firm in San Francisco, where he practiced real estate law.

In 1993, Victor decided to leave Gordon & Rees to assume the executive director position at San Francisco La Raza Centro Legal. During his tenure at La Raza Centro Legal, Victor expanded the breadth and depth of the organization's key programs: he started a senior law program to help seniors with consumer fraud, elder abuse, social security, and other issues; he founded a youth law program to help protect the rights of children in the schools and on the streets; he initiated a citizenship campaign program that naturalized thousands of immigrants; and he fortified an existing housing and immigration program.

Other highlights of Victor's involvement in the community include serving on the advisory board of the American Jewish Congress; serving as a board director on the AIDS Legal Referral Panel; and serving on several capital campaigns for community based organizations.

Victor now manages his own firm, the Marquez Law Group. Even with a busy law practice, however, Victor continues to demonstrate his commitment to the community. Victor has served as the President of San Francisco La Raza Lawyers Association for two different terms within the past ten years and as General Counsel for the past three years. He is Chairman of the Board of the Mexican Museum, in which capacity he has helped lead an effort to build a new facility to house the largest collection of Mexican art outside of Mexico. For this and his other community work, he has been recognized by the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce as one of the most influential leaders in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Victor is taking over as President of the Hispanic National Bar Association in the first week of October of 2007. In that role, he will lead the organization to great accomplishments, and will be a zealous advocate for the Hispanic Community throughout the United States.

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