AG Brown names Patricio Marquez new head of Wing Luke Civil Rights Division

Attorney General Nick Brown has named Managing Assistant Attorney General Patricio Marquez to serve as the Division Chief of the Wing Luke Civil Rights Division in the Attorney General’s Office (AGO).

Marquez joined the AGO in 2014 and was the third lawyer hired into the then-Civil Rights Unit in 2016. He has been a manager in the division for the last seven years and has demonstrated his ability to serve as a strong leader and steward of the Civil Rights Division, as well as a member of the AGO’s leadership team.

“Patricio is a superlative civil rights attorney who has the experience and vision to lead the best Civil Rights Division in the country,” said Brown. “Washington’s civil rights protections are some of the strongest in the nation, and Patricio will lead our vigorous enforcement of these rights.”

“For over a decade, the Civil Rights Division has challenged unlawful and discriminatory policies and practices in the workplace, in housing, by businesses open to the public, and by the federal government. Now more than ever, our team remains committed to fighting against discrimination and for the cause of justice, as good government should,” Marquez said. “We will continue to vigorously protect and enforce civil rights on behalf of all Washingtonians, including the most vulnerable.”

Since joining the AGO, Marquez has handled all aspects of litigation in state and federal courts from investigation through trial and has been directly involved in many of the office’s most important consumer protection and civil rights cases. These cases include the AGO’s challenges to the President’s Muslim travel ban, the transgender military service ban, and a private immigration detention operator’s failure to pay detainees minimum wage for their labor. 

Marquez also worked on several cases involving sexual harassment of low wage and agricultural workers and abuse of the H-2A foreign guest worker program displacing local and female farmworkers. He was also involved in the AGO's challenge to Greyhound’s practice of allowing U.S. Customs & Border Protection agents on its buses to conduct warrantless and suspicionless immigration sweeps. 

Marquez has earned recognition during his time at the AGO, including the AGO’s Excellence Award and being named as Senior Counsel. Together with his colleagues, he also received the Legal Foundation of Washington’s Charles A. Goldmark Award in 2018 and the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ Defender of Justice Award. He obtained his Juris Doctor from Columbia Law School and his Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts from Stanford University.

The previous Division Chief of the Civil Rights Division, Colleen Melody, was appointed to the Washington State Supreme Court at the end of 2025.