Picture of Marta M. Fernandez

Marta M. Fernandez is the Chair of JMBM's Labor & Employment Department. Her practice focuses on advising management clients in all aspects of labor and employment law. She represents employers in the health care sector, hospitality, transportation, retail, banking and other service industries.

Her experience includes State and Federal labor and employment litigation, wage and hour issues, class actions, National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) practice, management/union relations, discrimination claims, administrative proceedings, executive compensation, compliance and government investigations and general advice and counseling for clients in labor and employment areas. She advises employers in the implementation of preventative management strategies, such as executive training, arbitration enforcement and policies and procedures.

Named as a Top Woman Lawyer by the Los Angeles Daily Journal in 2020

Named by the Daily Journal as one of California's Top 75 Labor and Employment Lawyers

Health Care Industry Focus
Marta has extensive experience in the health care industry and her representation covers many areas including damage control strategies, union prevention strategies, union negotiations, neutrality agreements, representation and decertification elections, successorship and affiliations, arbitrations, NLRB trials, wage and hour audits, defense of class action lawsuits, State, Federal and administrative trials, management training, and day-to-day counseling and advice. 

Hospitality Industry Focus
Marta also heads the labor and employment practice of the Firm's Global Hospitality Group® and serves as co-chair on JMBM's Latin America Hospitality Group. She focuses on management relations such as hiring the workforce of the owner's choice, collective bargaining for single as well as multi-employer bargaining units, neutrality agreements, and defense of unfair labor practice charges before the NLRB. She defends hotel owners in litigation claims such as employee claims of sexual harassment and discrimination and in wage and hour class action lawsuits. 

Representative Experience
  • Management labor and employment counsel to multi-national corporations in health care, hospitality, transportation, retail, banking and other service industries
  • Represents clients in collective bargaining and union representation matters throughout the United States
  • Trial counsel in numerous jury and court trials in all aspects of labor and employment-related litigation
  • Successfully represented national corporate clients in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeal in overturning NLRB decisions
  • Negotiated well over 75 collective bargaining agreements in the course of her career
  • Clerk to the Honorable Robert J. Kelleher of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, 1984
Education

J.D., University of Southern California Gould School of Law, 1985
with honors

B.A., Loyola Marymount University, 1982
magna cum laude

Bar Admissions State Bar of California
U.S. District Court, Southern District of California
U.S. District Court, Central District of California
U.S. District Court, Northern District of California
U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York
U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit
Associations

Chairman of the Board, Partners In Care Foundation

Jonathan Club
Board of Directors, Director
Second Vice President
Vice President

Advisory Board, Loyola Marymount University, Bellarmine College of Liberal Arts

Board of Regents, Loyola Marymount University

Member, Interlaw, an international association of law firms

Los Angeles County Bar Association

Awards & Recognition
Hotel Law Blog