LoStracco Interview - Marie Leonard

Nicole LoStracco spoke at SFA’s Risk Management Training on September 24, which covered topics such as fire hazards, alcohol and hazing. Ten days later, SFA student Nikolas Gallegos died of alcohol poisoning.

“Emotionally I had to look at it from the viewpoints of the parents. You feel for the friends, you feel for the family,” LoStracco said.

LoStracco was born in San Francisco, but when she was two years old her father was transferred to Brussels, Belgium. Upon her return to the United States she attended Mills College, a liberal arts women’s university in San Francisco. After graduating from Mills, LoStracco chose to attend Texas Tech University to attend law school. She met her husband at Tech, and he asked her to come back to Nacogdoches with him after she graduated. LoStracco graduated six months early from law school, and got married a few months after she graduated.

When she moved to Nacogdoches, LoStracco realized she did not have many options to choose from when picking a law firm. “If you come back to a small town like Nacogdoches, you go where the niche is,” she said. LoStracco wound up in Lufkin for her first year here, and fell into family law. After the first year she decided she did not like the commute and found a job in Nacogdoches.

LoStracco decided to go to work at the district attorney’s office in Nacogdoches, and landed a job as a prosecutor for violence against women. She spent about three years doing that, and wound up specializing in child sexual assault cases.
In the mean time, her husband, James R. LoStracco, was building up a family law practice. In October of 2004 he left the DA’s office and opened a criminal defense practice. When asked about what cases she chooses to work on, LoStracco replied by saying, “There are some cases you’re just not willing to handle. Your personality won’t work with a client’s personality. All the skeletons in the closet need to come out to your lawyer.”

LoStracco is planning to run against incumbent Stephanie Stephens for the office of district attorney of Nacogdoches next year. When asked why she wants to reenter the DAs office, LoStracco replied by saying she was told by people in the county that there are many problems at the DA office currently. A few years ago the DA office was winning trials at an 80 percent rate, but now it is down to a 50 percent rate. She has also been told of managerial problems in the district attorney’s office. “One of the hardest things is managing people, is being the boss. Firing is the hardest thing you can do in the work world,” LoStracco said.

She believes she was chosen to speak at SFA because, “There’s nothing worse than having a speaker coming in and is nervous about speaking in front of a crowd,” she said. I don’t see myself as a politician. I don’t want a job where I can’t say what I think.” LoStracco wants to help the younger generation learn their rights because she believes it is not fair for the state to win a case because the person who was accused of an offense does not know their rights.

LoStracco said, “I think it’s hard for anybody to understand hazing. It’s tough to understand that somebody could succumb to peer pressure so badly they would haze themselves.” Universities have begun to take hazing more seriously over the past couple decades. “Getting into med school with an alcohol offense on your record is a big deal,” LoStracco said.
The subject of hazing is discussed in every organization on the SFA campus, and university officials take it very seriously. LoStracco said, “The criminal justice system is looking for some kind of injury to someone, but just embarrassing someone can get someone accused of hazing at the university level.”

When she was in high school and college hazing was treated differently. “I can’t remember a single friend who went through the law enforcement process for a DWI when I was in high school or college,” she said. Over the past couple decades universities have changed their policy statements and ideologies about the subject of hazing. LoStracco is trying to help college students become better educated about the choices they make, and help them better learn how to deal with the consequences of their actions.