Tessa Somers has been an attorney since 2012, and has served as in-house legal counsel at USAA Federal Savings Bank since 2019, focusing on fair lending and deposits. Before joining USAA, Tessa was a litigator at a law firm in Washington, DC. Her undergraduate studies included Spanish and French, and she was a teacher with Teach For America for two years in Texas’s Rio Grande Valley. She met her husband there and gained a greater appreciation for the immigrant experience from her students and her husband’s family. After their time in Washington, DC, Tessa and her husband and son moved back to her hometown in Illinois where she worked for State Farm Bank. While working there, Tessa had the opportunity to provide pro bono support to immigrant women seeking asylum in Texas. She is humbled by the chance to support The Immigration Project and its clients. When she isn’t lawyering, Tessa runs marathons and coaches her son’s soccer team.