Ms. Mary-Patricia Wray J.D.

Mary-Patricia Wray, the founder of Top Drawer Strategies, is a graduate of The Ohio State University (B.A.) and Loyola University New Orleans College of Law (J.D.). Before moving to Louisiana from Ohio in 2008, she worked for Ohio Governor Ted Strickland and Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray, later head of the Consumer Affairs Protection Agency. In 2012, she began representing clients focused on improving their communities by investing in public education and increasing access to high-quality healthcare. She also works on policy issues surrounding criminal justice reform, healthcare delivery systems, economic development, multimodal transportation, coastal transportation, affordable energy, finance and tax issues, non-profit advocacy, and local and municipal government. MP is an adjunct professor of law at Tulane Law School in New Orleans where she teaches Legislative and Administrative Advocacy focusing on legislative drafting and agency rulemaking, and Louisiana's ethics and sunshine laws and related caselaw.

MP has been recognized by The American Association of Political Consultants as a Top 40 Under 40 political consultant among all her peers in the United States of America. Her expertise in persuasion messaging has led her to win three statewide campaigns in five years. MP served as one of the only staffers in the early years of John Bel Edwards' 2015 campaign, securing victory for the only Democratic statewide elected official in Louisiana and the only Democratic governor in the Deep South. Her award-winning advocacy contributed to another upset victory, 2018's "Yes on 2" ballot initiative to erase one of Louisiana's last remaining Jim Crow era laws and require the use of unanimous juries. She also led the successful statewide "No on 5" campaign, against payments in lieu of taxes.

She led the team behind the passage of Louisiana's 2018 voting rights legislation, the historic Morganza to the Gulf flood-gate project which was funded through state partnerships over six sessions and two gubernatorial administrations, as well as infrastructure investment packages unparalleled in recent state history. Put simply, MP persuades those in power to invest in smart initiatives that make Louisiana better.