Karina Xart McMahon

Most lawyers start their legal careers with very little legal experience. Such is not case with Karina Xart McMahon (formerly Ms. Karina S. Xart). Karina’s experience in the legal field began at the age of 14, when she volunteered her time with the Legal Aid Society of Miami and utilized her bilingual skills to translate matters for Spanish-speaking clients. While obtaining her law degree, Karina further honed her advocacy and negotiation skills by mediating cases in General Session Court, representing Immigrants at the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center and at the Miami-Dade County School Board Attorney’s Office, the State of Tennessee in the Knox County Criminal Court as an Acting Assistant District Attorney, and abused children in the Knox County Juvenile Court as a Certified Legal Intern for a Guardian ad Litem. Karina’s breadth of experience has enabled her to skillfully identify issues and foster positive outcomes to legal matters like a seasoned veteran. Indeed, in just three years as an attorney, Karina has appeared before administrative agencies such as the United States Equal Opportunity Commission, Florida Commission on Human Relations, Public Employee Relations Commission, and Florida state and federal courts and successfully represented clients in complex business and employment-related negotiations and litigation, including trial. Due to her experience and success level, Karina earned her place as a shareholder in just three years of practice with Wilson McCoy, P.A.

Among other things, Karina regularly provides advice to small and medium-sized businesses, enforces non-competition agreements, and represents individuals and businesses in matters involving discrimination, whistleblowing, and unpaid wages. Such representation encompasses the representation of clients in numerous industries, including staffing, gas and oil, restaurant, hospitality, insurance, education, local government, auto, finance, health and beauty, construction, healthcare, agriculture, legal, as well as many others.

Karina graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Human Development and Communications, from Boston College (“BC”). While at BC, Karina served as the Chief Justice of the Undergraduate Government of Boston College and as a Senior Board Member of the Student Judicial Board. Throughout her four years of college, Karina worked at the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau and as a Teacher’s Assistant at the Jackson Mann Pre-School. Karina earned her Juris Doctor degree from the University Of Tennessee College Of Law (“UT”), with a concentration in Advocacy and Dispute Resolution.

During her first year of law school, Karina founded Enlace, the first Latino Law Student Association at UT and wrote on to the Tennessee Journal of Law and Policy, later being elected as Managing Editor. Karina also competed nationally on the Jessup International Moot Court team, and she received two Public Interest Fellowship Grants for her skillful representation of clients. Due to her academic and extracurricular accomplishments, Karina became the First Recipient of the Tennessee Judicial Conference Scholarship in Honor of Justice Penny White.

Karina was born and raised in Miami, Florida. As a first generation American, Karina’s native language is Spanish and later learned to speak Catalan while living in Barcelona in 2008. Karina discovered her passion for law early on and began working in the legal field at the age of fourteen, when she volunteered her time with the Legal Aid Society of Miami.