Our Team

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Mario Martínez

Mario Martínez has fought for farm workers since 1999, when an Equal Justice Works fellowship brought him to the United Farm Workers of America. The son of farm workers, he picked grapes in Southern California as a boy — an experience that still drives his work. In 2015 he co-founded Martínez Aguilasocho Law, Inc. Over his career he has represented low-wage workers in nearly every agricultural industry in California and in states across the country, recovering more than $25 million in stolen wages and helping win the first heat-illness protections in the nation and overtime rights for California's farm workers. He also serves as General Counsel to the UFW.

Education

  • UC Berkeley School of Law — J.D., 1998

  • UC Riverside — B.A., Philosophy, 1994

Bar & Court Admissions

  • State Bar of California, 1999

  • Washington State Bar, 2026

  • U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit

  • U.S. District Courts, Central, Eastern, and Northern Districts of California

Significant Cases

  • In 2017, argued and won two cases before the California Supreme Court that were decided the same day, securing make-whole relief for farm workers and closing off "abandonment" as an employer defense to the duty to bargain — Gerawan Farming, Inc. v. ALRB (2017) 3 Cal.5th 1118 and Tri-Fanucchi Farms v. ALRB (2017) 3 Cal.5th 1161.

  • Decades of complex wage-and-hour class actions in state and federal court, recovering more than $25 million in unpaid wages for farm workers.

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Edgar Iván Aguilasocho

Edgar Iván Aguilasocho has represented farm workers since 2013, beginning as a staff attorney for the United Farm Workers of America, where he served as lead trial counsel in the largest hearing in the history of California's Agricultural Labor Relations Board — 105 hearing days and 130 witnesses. A member of UC Irvine School of Law's inaugural class, he co-founded MAL in 2015 and now litigates wage-and-hour class actions, labor matters, and cases combating forced labor and human trafficking in agriculture. He also serves as General Counsel to the UFW Foundation. The grandson of a Bracero, Edgar carries his family's field work into every case he takes.

Education

  • UC Irvine School of Law — J.D., pro bono high honors, 2012 (UCI Law Legacy Award)

  • UC Riverside — B.A., Philosophy, magna cum laude, 2009 (Oliver A. Johnson Award, 2008–2009)

Bar & Court Admissions

  • State Bar of California, 2012

  • Washington State Bar, 2020

  • U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit

  • U.S. District Courts, Eastern, Central, and Northern Districts of California, and Eastern District of Washington

Significant Cases

  • Martínez-Rodríguez v. Giles, 31 F.4th 1139 (9th Cir. 2022) — won landmark Ninth Circuit case law protecting immigrant agricultural guestworkers who were fraudulently recruited and subjected to forced labor, strengthening survivors' ability to bring trafficking claims in civil court.

  • Lead trial counsel in the largest hearing in the history of California's Agricultural Labor Relations Board.

Activities & Affiliations

  • General Counsel, UFW Foundation

  • California Employment Lawyers Association, Member

  • Sociedad Juárez, Finance Commissioner

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Staff Attorney

Brenda Rizo

Brenda Rizo grew up in Corcoran, in the heart of the Central Valley, watching her farm worker parents come home shortchanged on pay and denied water and shade. That injustice set her course. She earned degrees in ethnic studies and political economy from UC Berkeley, then her law degree from Kern County College of Law — rising at MAL from paralegal to attorney. Her work spans union-organizing fights and People v. Efrén Álvarez, one of California's first agricultural labor-trafficking prosecutions, where she worked directly with survivors from the start.

Education

  • Kern County College of Law — J.D.; M.L.S., Master of Legal Studies

  • UC Berkeley — B.A., Ethnic Studies and Political Economy

Bar & Court Admissions

  • State Bar of California, 2022

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Staff Attorney

Areyonna Keels

Areyonna Keels brings a wide-ranging public-interest background to MAL's work for farm workers. Fluent in Spanish, she has coordinated a volunteer attorney program and advocated for LGBTQ+ and rural communities, with front-line experience at California Rural Legal Assistance (CRLA) and GBLA. Admitted to the South Carolina bar, she pairs proven legal acumen with a deep commitment to community service — strengthening the firm's capabilities and its dedication to justice across every area of its practice.

Education

  • Charleston School of Law — J.D.

  • Coker University — B.A., Spanish Language

Bar & Court Admissions

  • State Bar of South Carolina

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Lizbeth Valdez

Lizbeth Valdez is MAL's lead investigator. A graduate of the Escuela Comercial Cámara de Comercio (ECCC) de la Roma in Mexico City, where she earned her Licenciatura en Mercadotecnia (bachelor's degree in Marketing), she was shaped by community radio in Sonoma County — where she co-hosted Voces de Mujeres on KBBF 89.1 — and found her calling organizing alongside the United Farm Workers, from strawberry and tree-fruit campaigns to North Coast wine-grape contracts. She has helped drive victories against wage theft, labor trafficking, and sexual harassment in the fields. For Lizbeth, every worker who finds the courage to step forward is a win.

Lead Investigator
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Eulogio Donato

Eulogio Donato brings a lifetime of organizing to MAL's work for farm workers. From San José de las Flores, Mesones Hidalgo, Oaxaca — and rooted for 28 years in Greenfield, California — he worked the fields himself and lived the injustices that foremen inflicted on workers. That experience pushed him to the front lines. As a community volunteer, he brought organizations and government agencies together to educate farm workers about their rights, and helped win change for Greenfield's Indigenous community against racial discrimination. As an organizer with the United Farm Workers, he secured a union election and contract at George Amaral Ranches and brought many D'Arrigo workers into full union membership. He became an organizer and investigator to keep standing with farm workers against the injustices they face every day.

Investigator
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Johany Barragán keeps MAL running. Originally from Michoacán, she worked the Bakersfield and Porterville orchards to pay her way through UC Merced, where she earned a B.A. in Spanish literature and helped found a support organization for undocumented students. She began her career helping unaccompanied immigrant children win asylum, then joined MAL and was promoted to Operations Manager. She builds the internal systems that free the firm's attorneys to focus on their cases — and works to extend MAL's reach to farm workers across the state.

Operations Manager

Johany Barragan

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Case Manager

Lissbeth Prieto

Lissbeth Prieto Dellan is MAL's case manager and a licensed attorney in her native Venezuela, where she comes from a family of lawyers with roots in farming and ranching. She earned her law degree from the Universidad Gran Mariscal de Ayacucho before moving to California. In Bakersfield she saw the injustices of the fields firsthand and committed herself to labor equality for farm workers. Her mission is simple: help every worker find the voice to defend their rights.