Andy Wright joined NAAG as a NAGTRI program counsel in February 2018. He began his legal career as a prosecutor in Fairfax County, Virginia, where he handled minor misdemeanors and traffic offenses to serious felonies. Later, he served as a lawyering skills instructor at Catholic University’s Columbus School of Law for two years. In 2001, he joined the American Prosecutors Research Institute (which later merged with the National District Attorneys Association) as part of its Project Safe Neighborhoods Gun Violence Prosecution Program. Andy was in charge of training for newly-hired state and local prosecutors. In 2004, he was chosen to head the organization’s newly-formed Drug Prosecution and Prevention Program and conducted trainings on issues relating to prosecuting drug cases.
Andy joined the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in 2007 as an associate legal advisor for Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Office of the Principal Legal Advisor (OPLA). He subsequently became the chief of OPLA’s Training Division. He oversaw trial advocacy and substantive training for OPLA’s attorneys in field offices around the country and the Washington, D.C. headquarters. Andy left DHS to become the training director for the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Andy received his undergraduate degree from the University of Virginia and his law degree from Washington and Lee University. He was born and raised in Northern Virginia.