Our Mission

Karen White is the Executive Director of the Conference of Western Attorneys General (CWAG). She is responsible for executing the mission and vision of the CWAG Attorneys General. CWAG consists of 18 Western States and Pacific Territories and dozens of associate member States from across the country.

Ms. White focuses on developing resources which enhance the Attorneys Generals’ ability to obtain, exchange and utilize information regarding issues of particular importance to the membership. Ms. White implements programs and seminars, supports communication between and amongst the offices of the member and associate member states, and fosters a broad range of beneficial relationships.

The cultivation of CWAG’s network of chief legal officers and staff has resulted in the organization’s national reputation for legal excellence on matters which fall within the purview of Attorneys General. The Conference is recognized as a leader in facilitating conversations between public officials, the private sector and other interested entities on topics ranging from natural resources to the environment, from cyber security to criminal law matters, and from financial fraud to consumer protection.

Ms. White is also responsible for building relationships between the Attorneys General and outside entities including local, state and federal partners and the business community. Additionally, Ms. White leads an international program of collaboration with legal officials from regional and State governments, including Mexico, Canada, Ireland, Eastern Europe and Africa. She directs the Conference’s efforts to facilitate cultural exchanges, initiate relationships and expedite the sharing of information on transnational issues

Under Ms. White’s leadership, the Conference partnered with the United States Department of State, Mexican State and Federal Governments and other public and private entities to initiate a rule of law program, the CWAG Alliance Partnership. Since its inception in 2006, this innovative peer-to-peer training and exchange program has connected over 27,000 law enforcement officials in Mexico and the United States.

Karen White has worked at CWAG on behalf of the Attorneys General for 27 years. She began her career with CWAG as a law school intern doing legal research, moved on to serve as the Association’s Meeting Planner and then the Deputy Director. In the summer of 2006 Ms. White became the Executive Director of CWAG. She is a graduate of Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington, having studied Business and Political Science with a pre-law emphasis. Ms. White attended the University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento, California and received her JD from Concord University. Karen and her husband Ron have three children and are celebrating their 25th year of marriage.

Frank Collins is the Chief Financial Officer and the Director of the Alliance Partnership Mexico for the Attorney General Alliance. As the CFO, he manages the organization’s finances. As the Director of AP Mexico, he handles the development of training programs for law enforcement in Mexico.

Previously, Mr. Collins was Legal Advisor to the Conference of Western Attorneys General Alliance Partnership (CWAG AP). In that role, he facilitated communication and cooperation between officials in Mexico and the U.S. state Offices of the Attorney General. He developed training programs and trained thousands of prosecutors, investigators, judges, and forensic experts in Mexico on criminal investigation, interviewing, oral trials, how to testify effectively, ethics, fighting organized crime, arms trafficking, kidnapping, serious sexual offenses, murder, and anti-money laundering, among other topics. In addition, he regularly consulted with Mexican prosecutors and investigators to help them investigate and prosecute actual cases.

Before CWAG, Mr. Collins was an Assistant Attorney General in Arizona and worked as a liaison to Mexico on criminal matters. He developed plans to combat cross-border organized crime, share information with Mexico, handled foreign prosecutions, and coordinated the international extradition of fugitives. He worked with federal and state Mexican authorities to fight money laundering, human trafficking and smuggling, drug smuggling, arms trafficking, kidnapping, murder, and serious sexual offenses, among others. Previously at the Arizona Attorney General’s Office, he prosecuted large-scale fraud cases, public corruption, organized crime, human smuggling, money laundering, and homicides, including capital murder.

Mr. Collins also worked in Arizona as a Deputy County Attorney at both the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office and the Cochise County Attorney’s Office on the Mexican border. There he prosecuted drug smuggling, homicides, and a variety of other felony and misdemeanor offenses.

He has a B.S. in Political Science from Arizona State University (1997), a Juris Doctor degree from the University of San Diego (2001), an Executive Certificate in Global Negotiations from the Thunderbird School of Global Management (2015), and a master’s degree from Arizona State University in Real Estate Development (2019). In 2009, he was nominated for Prosecutor of the Year for a Large Jurisdiction in Arizona. He also owns a real estate development company with his business partner.

His native language is English, and he is fluent in Spanish.

Selene Collins is the Administrative Director of the Attorney General Alliance, Alliance Partnership. Selene focuses on international relationship-building with state, federal, and organizations that collaborate with the Alliance Partnership. She oversees the day-to-day operations of the AP staff, and the administrative oversight of the grant programming that results in the development, planning, and implementation of training programs for criminal justice professionals, including prosecutors, investigators, and forensic scientists, in support of the Mexican criminal justice system reforms as well as programs in Southeast Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.

Selene returned in 2020 to the Alliance Partnership as Consultant and Distance Learning Manager after the global pandemic required organizations to migrate operations online, and she was able to take the challenge. Previous to that, she joined the Conference of Western Attorneys General (CWAG) Alliance Partnership in 2009 as Project Liaison and helped establish the Alliance Partnership relationships programs with Mexico. She successfully developed and managed new binational United States and Mexico relations at the state and federal level between federal and state Attorney General’s Offices. She managed the end-to-end logistics training programs, forums, and symposiums.

From 2014 to 2020 Selene worked as Program Manager in Executive Education at Thunderbird School of Global Management in Glendale, AZ. She managed international client relations, participants, faculty, directors, and event providers on a variety of global world-class executive education programs. She specialized in delivering multi-cohort, multi module, multi-cultural, long-term complex custom programs from end-to-end. Since 2014, she delivered in-person, mixed-modality, and online programs in diverse digital platforms for more than 1000 participants in North America, Latin America, Europe, Middle East, and Asia Pacific.

Selene Collins has a bachelor’s degree in Business Management and Tourism from Universidad Cristóbal Colón in México (2001). She graduated with high honors with a minor in English Literature from Cochise College (2005), has an Executive Certificate in Global Negotiations (2016) from Thunderbird School of Global Management, and an Executive Master’s Degree from Thunderbird School of Global Management in Global Management (2018). Through her 20 years of experience, Selene Collins has directed and managed complex operations for national and international organizations.

Her native language is Spanish, and she is fluent in English, along with medium proficiency in French and Italian.

Austin is the Director of the Attorney General Alliance’s Cannabis Project and an Assistant Attorney General for the State of Colorado. As the Cannabis Project Director, Austin studies the latest developments in cannabis law and policy, educates the attorney general community on those trends, and convenes forums for collaboration between Attorneys General and key stakeholders to dialogue on solutions. As an AAG, Austin represents the Colorado marijuana and liquor regulatory authorities in litigation and regulatory compliance matters. Before practicing law, Austin led education reform efforts as a policy advisor, nonprofit manager, and special education teacher with Teach For America. He holds a JD from Emory University School of Law, a Master’s in Special Education from the University of Hawai’i at Manoa, and a BA in Social Relations Policy from Michigan State University’s James Madison College. He currently lives in Boston, MA, with his wife, daughter, and black lab.

Tegan White grew up interning and participating in a variety of activities and events provided by the Conference of Western Attorneys General and the Attorney General Alliance. Whether working with foreign delegations on Rule of Law missions or handling domestic logistics and communications for speakers and meeting attendees, she is highly organized, warm and welcoming.

As a program assistant Tegan is always ready to provide support and facilitate communication. Her professionalism enhances programing and interpersonal communications. Her enthusiasm and attention to detail ensure her projects are successful and beneficial to the organizations members and the Attorney General community.

Tegan’s personal interests range from classic cars to antique collecting. Tegan graduated from University of Colorado Denver in May of 2021 with a Bachelor of Arts in Communication with an emphasis on Interpersonal, Business and Multi-Cultural Communication.

Completing his Bachelor of Science in Health and Exercise Science from Colorado State University (2020), Ricardo “Richy” Balderrama Caraveo opened the door to some amazing opportunities. As a Benjamin A. Gilman Scholar, studying Public Health abroad in Thailand, he completed a multi-disciplinary program focused on examining healthcare services and public health priorities while conducting hands-on research within the local rural communities of Khon Kaen. This experience helped him develop professionally and enrich his adventure seeking soul! Those 5 months in Northern Thailand sparked his interested to work internationally across our southern border with the Alliance Partnership.

As a Program Coordinator, Ricardo is responsible for successfully executing our virtual events across all of Mexico within the Alliance Partnership. Between other responsibilities such as managing the social media platforms and administrative tasks for the Alliance Partnership throughout the week, he dedicates his free time to learn how to code in Python. He is a motivated young professional who is committed to live life to the fullest by seeking new snowboarding adventures in the winter and finding new mountain biking trails in the summer, all while developing a new career path.

Joy Orr has served as CWAG’s Administrative Assistant for over 23 years. Joy began providing administrative services to CWAG in 1997 under a cooperative agreement between CWAG and the California Department of Justice, Office of the Attorney General. She’s primarily responsible for handling the day-to-day operations of the CWAG office, including managing phones, emails, mail, shipping, payroll and banking. Her roles with CWAG have included Continuing Legal Education (CLE) registration and processing, conference and meeting support and general office management.

In total, Joy worked for the CA Attorney General’s Office for over 27 years classified as an Associate Government Program Analyst and formally retired from state civil service in 2019. She has since continued to serve CWAG as Administrative Assistant on a part-time basis and continues to manage the office phones, serves as an expert on CLE rules & regulations and remains current on regulation updates, assists in conference and meeting support, payroll processing and banking.

Joy received her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of California at Santa Cruz in 1978 where she studied psychology & early childhood education. After graduating, she owned and operated a preschool & daycare business in Sacramento, California for 10 years before joining the Department of Justice. When she’s not working, Joy is an avid reader and enjoys reading and collecting African American literature. She especially enjoys spending time with her family including her two children Devin and Mia, son-in-law, Daniel and her granddaughter London, and is anxiously awaiting the arrival of her first grandson.

Clive Strong is the Conference of Western Attorneys General (CWAG) Legal Director for Natural Resources and Environment.  Mr. Strong is responsible for providing information to and coordinating discussions among member states on emerging issues in the areas of natural resource, public lands, and environmental law.  Mr. Strong also coordinates the Western Attorney General Litigation Action Committee (WAGLAC).

Prior to joining CWAG, Mr. Strong was a deputy attorney general in the Office of the Idaho Attorney General for 34 years.  As Chief of the Natural Resources Division, Mr. Strong supervised a staff of twenty-five attorneys responsible for representing Idaho in the areas of water, public lands, environmental, natural resource and Indian law.  He served under four attorneys general and advised six governors and multiple state agencies.

Mr. Strong was the State of Idaho’s lead attorney in the Snake River Basin Adjudication, which adjudicated over 158,000 private, state and federal water right claims.  He negotiated the 1990 Fort Hall Indian Water Rights Agreement, the 2004 Snake River Water Rights Agreement, the Shoshone-Paiute Reserved Water Rights Agreement and the Wild and Scenic Rivers Agreement.

Mr. Strong represented Idaho in Superfund, natural resource damage and nuclear waste cases.

Mr. Strong argued United States v. Idaho, 508 U.S. 1 (1993) and Idaho v. Coeur d’ Alene Tribe of Idaho, 521 U.S. 261 (1997) cases before the United States Supreme Court.

In 2014, the American Bar Association named Mr. Strong the Environment, Energy, and Resources Government Attorney of the Year.  He is a recipient of the Idaho State Bar’s Professionalism Award. Mr. Strong received public service awards from the National Association of Attorneys General and the Conference of Western Attorneys General for his work on behalf of those organizations.

Mr. Strong earned a Juris Doctorate and a B.S. in Forestry from the University of Idaho, and an LL.M. from the University of Michigan.  He is a member of the Idaho and Washington State Bars.  Mr. Strong is admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court and several Federal District Courts and Circuit Courts of Appeal.

Clay R. Smith is a former Deputy Attorney General in the Idaho Attorney General’s Office where he served in its Natural Resources and Civil Litigation Divisions between 2001 and 2018. His responsibilities focused on civil rights, environmental and Indian law litigation in federal and state courts. Prior to joining the Idaho Attorney General’s Office, he served in the Montana Attorney General’s Office as an Assistant Attorney General (1984-1989) and as Solicitor (1989-2001). Among his responsibilities there was litigation related to Indian law matters. He received the Jim Jones Public Service Award from CWAG in 1993 and the President’s Distinguished Service Award from NAAG in 1996. Clay argued four cases before the United States Supreme Court, including two related to Indian law—National Farmers Union Insurance Cos. v. Crow Tribe (1985) and Montana v. Crow Tribe (1998). He served as co-editor or editor-in-chief between 1993 and 2011 for the American Indian Law Deskbook and as a chapter editor between 2014 and 2017. He resumed chief editorship in 2018. Clay was in private practice in Colorado and New Mexico between 1975 and 1983. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Virginia and his law degree from the University of Denver.

Fronda Woods joined CWAG staff in 2019 as the Assistant Editor of the American Indian Law Deskbook, having served as a Deskbook author since the 1990s. Ms. Woods retired from the Washington State Attorney General’s Office in 2018 after 30 years of state service. Her practice has focused on Indian law, including fishing, tax, and criminal jurisdiction issues. She has been involved in litigation in federal and state trial and appellate courts, including the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the Washington State Supreme Court, and the United States Supreme Court. She has spoken frequently at seminars on Indian law topics and published journal articles. CWAG awarded Ms. Woods the Jim Jones Public Service Award in 2017. Ms. Woods is a graduate of Harvard Law School and the University of Washington.