Menaka Nirmalie Fernando

MENAKA N. FERNANDO is a partner at Outten & Golden’s San Francisco office and focuses her practice on gender-based issues in the workplace. She is a member of the firm’s Sex Discrimination and Sexual Harassment and Family Responsibilities & Disabilities Discrimination Practice Groups. Ms. Fernando represents individual employees in negotiation and litigation in a variety of employment matters including sexual harassment, gender and race discrimination, family and pregnancy leave, retaliation, and wrongful termination, among others. Ms. Fernando has extensive experience in litigating employment matters in state and federal court, arbitration, and before administrative agencies Ms. Fernando also focuses on representing employees in negotiating employment and severance, agreements.

Ms. Fernando employs an extremely client-centered approach to her practice and incorporates each client’s unique circumstances and goals to tailor strategies that work best for each individual.

Throughout her career, Ms. Fernando has also been a policy crusader, lobbying and testifying before the California legislature to change the state’s employment laws. She is the current Co-Chair of the California Employment Lawyers’ Association and has worked on bills to strengthen the state’s anti-discrimination laws and harassment laws.

Ms. Fernando serves on the Executive Board of the California Employment Lawyers Association, a statewide organization of over 1,200 California attorneys who devote their practice to representing employees. Ms. Fernando also serves on the boards of Open Door Legal, a San Francisco-based non-profit organization that strives to eradicate poverty through universal access to legal aid, and the Stand Up For Workers Political Action Committee, which works to elect Congressional candidates who prioritize workers’ rights.

Prior to joining the firm, Ms. Fernando worked at several plaintiff-side employment and civil rights law firms in California. Ms. Fernando received her undergraduate degree from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2005 and her J.D. from UC Hastings College of the Law in 2010.