Rafael Rodriguez

Rafael earned his two Bachelor’s Degrees on a full scholarship from the University of Kentucky in 2014. In 2017, he obtained his Juris Doctorate from the University of Kentucky College of Law. He was admitted to practice law by the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky in 2017. He was admitted to the State Bar of California in 2020. Rafael was also admitted to practice law in the United States District Court for the Central District of California in 2020.

In law school, Rafael served as a Staff Editor on the Kentucky Journal of Equine, Agriculture, and Natural Resources Law. His note, Deficiencies in the Agricultural Labor Market, was published in the 2016-2017 edition of the Journal and focused on the nexus between the Federal Labor Standards Act and the Seasonal Migrant Workers Act. Rafael also served as a member of the Moot Court Board and competed at the Ninth Annual National Latina/o Law Student Association Moot Court Competition in Boston, Massachusetts. Additionally, he was a member of the Trial Advocacy Board.

After graduation from law school, Rafael served as a Staff Attorney for the Honorable Lucinda C. Masterton in the Fayette County Circuit Court in Lexington, Kentucky, drafting orders, writing opinions, and conducting legal research. Subsequently, Rafael worked at a prominent immigration firm in South Pasadena, California where he gained valuable experience through litigation in the federal immigration court system and by representing clients against government agencies. Rafael then sharpened his litigation skills further by joining Friedenthal, Heffernan & Brown, a premier insurance defense firm handling a variety of cases for the defense side, including catastrophic injury, wrongful death, premises liability, habitability, and construction defect cases. In this role, Rafael represented and defended businesses, non-profits, and individuals. Rafael also worked for two real estate law firms in Santa Monica, California and Century City, California where he represented real estate owners, developers, brokers, and agents. Rafael gained valuable experience seeking quiet title, adverse possession, and partition claims.

In his spare time, Rafael enjoys watching and playing soccer as well as biking. He has visited Japan, Iceland, Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, Ireland, England, and Mexico but hopes to add many more countries to that list.