Greg Lembrich is the Legal Director for Four Directions and a longtime advocate for voting rights, civic engagement, and public service. For more than two decades, Greg has worked with Four Directions and Native American communities across South Dakota and beyond to protect and expand access to the ballot and coordinating voter protection efforts that have removed barriers to voting and strengthened representation for Native voters.

Greg first volunteered in South Dakota during the 2002 general election, performing voter registration, get out the vote, and voter protection work. “I couldn’t build schools or roads, but I could help Tribal members elect people they support who could,” Lembrich says. While playing a frontline role in Senator Tim Johnson's narrow victory in that election, his experience monitoring the polls lit a passion to champion Native voting rights going forward

Serving as Legal Director since 2008, Greg has played a key role in many of Four Directions' legal and advocacy efforts, including challenges to discriminatory election practices, initiatives to improve voter registration and access to absentee and early voting on tribal lands, and efforts to ensure that Native American voters have an equal opportunity to participate in federal, state, and local elections. His work has contributed to significant increases in voter registration and turnout in reservation communities and landmark victories that have expanded political participation, strengthened tribal sovereignty, and advanced voting rights throughout Indian Country. He has also prevented white county commissioners from closing polling locations in Tribal communities and protected satellite voting offices for in-person absentee voting on the multiple reservations.

Lembrich has served as South Dakota statewide coordinator for Four Directions' voter protection work since 2008. During each election cycle, he works with law firms, law schools, and other partners to send up to 50 lawyers, law students, and Tribal volunteers to help Native voters exercise their right to vote at polling locations on reservations across South Dakota. In addition, Lembrich has provided election protection trainings and written a manual adopted by allies including the National Congress of American Indians and Tribes countrywide.

Throughout his career, Greg has combined private-sector legal practice with a deep commitment to public service. After spending a decade in private legal practice in New York, Greg has worked as Associate General Counsel for Litigation at New York Life Insurance Company since 2013. In addition to his professional responsibilities, he has served the residents of Maplewood, New Jersey, in a variety of civic and volunteer leadership roles, working to strengthen local government, community engagement, and public institutions. Greg was twice elected to the Maplewood Township Committee and served for 6 years on the township’s governing body. During that time, he also served as Chairman of the Public Safety Committee, and later appointed as a member of the South Essex Fire Department’s management committee after completing his time in elected office. His service reflects a longstanding belief that democratic participation begins at the local level and extends to every community.

A graduate of Columbia College and Columbia Law School, Greg has devoted thousands of hours to pro bono service on behalf of Four Directions and other civic organizations. Due to his leadership in voting rights and Native voter empowerment, Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman received the National Law Journal's Pro Bono Award in 2008. He continues to serve as a trusted advisor to Four Directions and tribal leaders on election law and voting rights and a leader in training lawyers and law students to work on the ground to ensure that all communities have a meaningful voice in the electoral process. “South Dakota is the frontline of today’s civil-rights battle,” says Lembrich. “And Four Directions is breaking down barriers for Native voters there and across the country.”