About Belen Olmedo
Belen Olmedo Guerra built a path to law that began long before she entered law school. She earned a B.A. from the University of Arizona in 2000 and a M.A. from the University of Phoenix in 2003. She later returned to formal legal study and received her J.D. from Phoenix School of Law in 2012.
Her earliest work combined counseling and education. In 1991 she served as a counselor advocate at Brewster Center Domestic Violence Services. She taught middle school in the Tucson Unified School District in 2001. Those roles exposed her to the human consequences of crime and family instability, and they shaped her interest in legal remedies.
While in law school she took on a range of public interest and court-related roles. In 2010 she worked as a legal volunteer at Elim House, a Salvation Army domestic violence shelter, and as a legal extern at the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project. She served as a judicial clerk at the Maricopa County Superior Court in 2011 and completed a research internship at Amnesty International USA’s research unit in New York in 2012.
After law school she moved into public defense work. In 2013 she was a deputy public defender with the Maricopa County Public Defender’s Office, where she handled a variety of criminal matters and gained courtroom experience. She later joined private practice as an associate criminal defense lawyer in 2018 at Suzuki Law Offices. In 2019 she worked as a criminal defense lawyer at DM Cantor. Those positions reflect a steady shift from public-interest roles to direct criminal defense representation in Arizona courts.
Guerra maintains memberships in several professional organizations, including the State Bar of Arizona, the Arizona Women Lawyers Association and Los Abogados Hispanic Bar Association. She has also served on a municipal advisory panel, participating on the City of Tucson Community Advisory Committee. Colleagues describe her as methodical in preparation and direct in court.
Her background in education and victim services informs how she communicates with clients and approaches case preparation. She has experience in pretrial matters, plea negotiations and contested hearings, and she has handled both misdemeanor and felony cases. She is admitted to practice in Arizona and continues to work on criminal defense matters in the state.
She currently practices criminal defense in Arizona.
