Meet Lauren VonWiegen (she/her)
Lauren holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Criminal Justice from Temple University and has nearly 10 years of experience working within the country's most respected public defender organizations and one of the top law schools, which has made her a skilled and strategic problem solver, creative thinker and a highly professional and trusted criminal defense investigator.
Lauren began her career as a staff investigator with the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia (PDS), where she worked as the lead investigator for 7 years on over one hundred criminal cases seen before D.C Superior Court at the Juvenile, General Felony, Serious Felony and Felony I practice levels. At PDS, Lauren implemented investigative strategy in collaboration with the clients and attorneys, established rapport with clients and witnesses, reviewed and analyzed digital evidence, scrutinized discovery, conducted 300+ interviews of key government, defense and expert witnesses and drafted 500+ memorandums and requested thousands of records, reviewed hundreds of thousands of pages of documents to extract important and relevant information for the lawyers, and testified in multiple evidentiary hearings and two felony jury criminal trials.
While at PDS, Lauren also successfully completed specialty training in Defense Victim Outreach (DVO) and then applied those skills to bridge the communication gap with the victim’s family members and the defense team on multiple post-conviction cases, often resulting in the release of incarcerated clients after twenty plus years.
Lauren's experience at PDS, including training, mentoring and advising six new lawyers and guiding over two dozen investigative interns, sparked her vision to shape the new generation of public defenders and defense investigators. The breadth and depth of these experiences enabled her transition into her current role as the Director of Investigations and Investigative Supervisor at Georgetown Law Center in the Criminal and Juvenile Justice Clinics. At Georgetown Law, Lauren oversees the investigation for all three criminal clinics by assisting the student lawyers and E. Barrett Prettyman Fellows with case investigation for misdemeanor, felony and post-conviction cases in DC Superior Court. In her role as Director, she also simultaneously trains, manages and oversees the Investigative Internship Program (IIP). IIP is a semester-based internship program for undergraduate students seeking to gain hands-on experience in the field of criminal law, allowing interns to conduct pre-trial and post-conviction case investigations.
Lauren’s skills as a mentor and a trainer have consistently been recognized and she has been invited to lead trainings and lectures for the local panel lawyers, various law schools across the country and present at the National Defense Investigator Association (NDIA) conference, which is geared towards advancing skill among defense investigators. Lauren is committed to continuous growth and learning and in the Fall of 2024 she began a Master's in Journalism Program at Georgetown University’s School of Continuing Studies, where she will further enhance her investigative skills and storytelling capabilities.
Lauren understands the increasing need for skilled, dedicated, and trustworthy investigative professionals within the legal field. Driven by a passion for supporting those marginalized and oppressed within the criminal justice system, her mission is to provide top-tier investigative services to attorneys and law firms, ensuring quality representation for all.