Alicia Villarreal named regional representative of US Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis

Sec rep to cover activities in California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah and Hawaii

WASHINGTON Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis today announced the appointment of Alicia Villarreal as her regional representative in California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah and Hawaii. Villarreal will be based in Los Angeles, Calif.

"I'm delighted to welcome Alicia to the Labor Department team," said Secretary Solis. "She brings more than 20 years of impressive legal experience, a commitment to public service and an unparalleled record of achievement on behalf of working families."

Within the U.S. Department of Labor, secretary's representatives, also known as "sec reps," are responsible for managing the department's regional activities on behalf of the secretary. They coordinate federal efforts on the regional, state and local levels, and serve as liaisons to state and local government officials and community stakeholders.

Before joining the Department of Labor, Villarreal was a partner at Morgan Lewis and worked in the firm's Los Angeles office's litigation practice. She handled internal corporate investigations, and the development and assessment of compliance programs for private and publicly traded companies. She also represented clients in civil and criminal law enforcement matters before the U.S. Department of Justice, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the World Bank, and other federal and state agencies. Previously, Villarreal served as an assistant U.S. attorney in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District of California for 14 years, where she investigated and prosecuted federal criminal cases involving public corruption, government procurement fraud, corporate fraud, bank fraud, tax fraud, health care fraud, and breaches of national security and espionage.

Villarreal received her J.D. from the University of Texas School of Law, her M.P.A. from the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin and her B.S.W. from the University of Texas at Austin. She is the founding president of the Mexican American Bar Foundation, a nonprofit charitable organization she established in 1991 to increase diversity in the legal profession, and serves on the board of the Constitutional Rights Foundation, a nonprofit educational organization dedicated to teaching junior high and high school students about the U.S. Constitution. She is admitted to practice law in California.

The Department of Labor fosters and promotes the welfare of the job seekers, wage earners and retirees of the United States by improving their working conditions, advancing their opportunities for profitable employment, protecting their retirement and health care benefits, helping employers find workers, strengthening free collective bargaining, and tracking changes in employment, prices and other national economic measurements. In carrying out this mission, the department administers a variety of federal labor laws including those that guarantee workers' rights to safe and healthful working conditions; a minimum hourly wage and overtime pay; freedom from employment discrimination; unemployment insurance; and other income support.