Vilma Socorro Martínez (born October 17, 1943) is an American lawyer, civil rights activist and diplomat who formerly served as the U.S.

She directed a program to help secure an extension of the Voting Rights Act to include Mexican Americans among the groups it protected.

[1] Martínez was the lead attorney for the plaintiffs in a 1974 ruling from the Tenth Circuit Court that guaranteed the right to a bilingual education for non English-speaking children in the Portales, New Mexico Municipal School District.

The decision expanded the language rights of public school children outlined in the Lau v. Nichols[3] U.S. Supreme Court case, which was decided earlier the same year.

In 1982, Vilma Socorro Martínez became a partner at the law firm Munger, Tolles & Olson, specializing in resolving labor disputes.

[6] Her role included the diplomatic management of the NASA-CONAE project that launched the SAC-D satellite into space,[7][8] She ended her tenure in Argentina on July 4, 2013.