El Paso County District Attorney candidate
Nancy Casas – D
Age: 49
Please describe your personal and professional background.
I was born in El Paso. I attended YISD schools and graduated from J.M. Hanks High School. Ireceived my BA at UTEP with a major in Political Science and a minor in History and my JD at theUniversity of Iowa.
I started my legal career as a paralegal for Legal Aid. I advocated on behalf of clients to obtainadministrative benefits and assisted the lawyers prepare for court. My desire to help the clientsin a greater capacity inspired me to go to law school. After my return from law school, I workedas a staff attorney at Legal Aid. I helped victims of domestic violence and victims of DeceptiveTrade Practice in their civil actions. After Legal Aid, I worked at the El Paso District Attorney’sOffice where I was assigned to the misdemeanor and felony courts, and intake. As a felonyattorney, I was placed in a specialty unit- The Drug Taskforce. I remained there for seven years. Iwas considered a subject matter expert on drug prosecution. I took an opportunity to workoverseas as a prosecutor with the European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo whereMentored, Monitored, and Advised local prosecutors in the Rule of Law. I received nationalsecurity clearance from the US State Department. After Kosovo, I was hired as a internationalTrainer for the Rule of Law in Latin American Countries (Panama, Peru, Guatemala, Mexico,Honduras) to train prosecutors and law enforcement to advocate in a system modeled to ours.When I came back to the U.S., I returned to the District Attorney Office and was placed in theIntake Division to prepare Felony and Misdemeanor criminal cases for the trial courts andpresentment to the grand juries and handle the presentation of cases through DistrictAttorney’s Information Management System (DIMS). I developed and implemented a trainingprogram for law enforcement officers throughout El Paso County, Culberson County, andHudspeth County in all aspects of case presentation to District Attorney’s Office, generalinvestigation, report writing, and trial preparation. I became a certified TCOLE traininginstructor. Additionally, I trained junior attorneys in the District Attorney’s InformationManagement System (DIMS) preindictment process and intake procedures. I finished my termwith the District Attorney’s Office as a Principal Attorney.