Sonia Cortés

Ms. Cortés specializes in labor and employment law and industrial relations. She has extensive experience in senior executive hiring and terminations, boardroom disputes, and restructuring projects (including spin-offs, transfers of undertaking, and mergers), as well as in collectives redundancies, collective bargaining, and all kinds of labor disputes and litigation, including discrimination, harassment, and safety at work.

She particularly advises foreign multinationals in the automotive chemical, hotels and tourism, textile, trade and new technologies sectors, on employment law and social security issues.

She has participated in some of the most relevant and complex downsizing and bargaining processes in recent years. Ms. Cortés also has ample experience in advising on senior management issues, including compensation and benefits.

Ms. Cortés is a lecturer in the Master of International Law at the ESADE Higher School for Business Studies and Management. She has also lectured on labor institutions in the degree program in business administration at ESADE, international trade and contracts at the Escuela Superior de Comercio Internacional (Universitat Pompeu Fabra), and in the Master in International Law at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra.

She is a regular speaker at international forums, including the International Bar Association and the European Employment Lawyers Association. She is a member of Foro Español de Laboristas ("FORELAB"), an association of labor and employment lawyers, and is an honorary member and former representative in Spain of the Association of Young Lawyers ("AIJA").

Mr. Cortés has written several publications on employment law and private international law, including the following:

Comentarios al Estatuto de los Trabajadores (Remarks on the Workers Statute), Lex Nova, 2008, co-author).

El Estatuto del Trabajador Autónomo (The Self-Employed Workers Statute), La Ley, 2009, co-author.

Spanish chapter on Spain of Guide to International Employment and Labor Law, Littler Mendelson (2009 and 2010).

Spanish chapter of the book Restrictive Covenants and Trade Secrets in Employment Law. An International Survey. Volume I, ABA Section of Labor and Employment Law (2011).

She has also written several other publications:

Employer's right to monitor employees' emails, The International Employment Lawyer; ABA International Employment Law Committee (2008).

Implicaciones del nombramiento de directivos al consejo ("Implications of appointing managers to the board of directors"), Abogacma & Empresa (2005).

The Spanish Supreme Court widens the interpretation of Transfer of Undertakings, Employment and Industrial Relations Law Review, International Bar Association Legal Practice Division (2005).

She is the secretary of the boards of directors of several national and international companies, and an active member of the employment law committees of several international associations, including the International Bar Association and the American Bar Association.

Bachelor of Laws, Universitat de Barcelona, 1988

Master in Business Law, Escuela Internacional de Negocios de Madrid, Cerem, 1997

Certificate in European Law, College of Europe, Belgium, 1988

Certificate in English Law, London City Polytechnic University, 1987

Languages: English and French

Recommended by several directories, including Chambers Europe, Expert Guides, Who's Who Legal and Best Lawyers in Employment.