Patti Lyman is a born and raised native Virginian and lifelong Republican, overwhelmingly elected our RNC National Committeewoman by Virginia Republicans in August 2020 in her first ever run for office. 

 

   Patti and her husband joined the pro-life movement in 1991, holding protest signs outside abortion clinics and hoping to not get arrested. She soon left a successful business career to become a pro-life attorney, going back to the abortion clinics to defend peaceful pro life protesters as a constitutional attorney at the American Center for Law & Justice. Patti successfully litigated 1st Amendment, parental rights and pro-life cases in state and federal courts and assisted victims of China’s forced abortion policy.   She also served on the board of the first national network of black pro-life groups fighting abortion’s devastating and disproportionate impact on the black community.

 

   After 9/11, Patti moved into immigration law specializing in asylum for persecuted Christians escaping Islamic countries.  

 

   Patti’s Republican party activism began as a full-time volunteer for the Ollie North Senate campaign in 1994. She vigorously advocated for Donald Trump in 2016, arguing in particular his genuine pro-life conversion many years before running for President.  He proved her right by being the most actively pro-life President since Roe v. Wade, and ensuring its ultimate overturn in June 2022.  After the 2016 election, Patti served as a surrogate speaker in Virginia’s 2017/2018 gubernatorial and US Senate races, and helped elect in 2018 a conservative chair to Virginia’s largest Republican committee. Most recently, Patti and her conservative RNC colleagues fought for the grassroots tooth and nail at the center of early efforts to get a new Chair at the RNC. 

 

   Patti holds a B.S. in Commerce from the University of Virginia. After working in banking in Miami, Patti earned an MBA in Finance in 1984 from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and received her Juris Doctor in 1997 from Regent University School of Law.  She is admitted to the bars of the Virginia Supreme Court, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court. 

 

   Patti and her husband of 33 years, Frank, live in Fairfax with their multiple cats and are blessed to enjoy their many godchildren, official and otherwise.