Margaret Fernandez - Cumming Business Lawyer Reviews & Ratings

Business Lawyer. Our Firm is focused upon business law.  We form new corporations, new LLCs, and help our Clients with incorporations and start-up businesses.. We assist Clients with all aspects of contract negotiation, and contract drafting, including real estate leases, equipment leases, and equipment financing.  We regularly draft software licensing agreements, and other technology agreements.. Dispute Resolution: Litigation, Mediation, Arbitration. Our Firm's principal, Margaret Fernandez, Esq., is a trained litigator, and has practiced in the state, superior, federal, and appeals courts of Georgia.  She has millions of dollars in awards, verdicts, and judgments. She is skilled at motions practice, discovery, courtroom, and appellate practice.  She is comfortable in litigation, arbitration, and mediation.. Ms. Fernandez has enjoyed tremendous success in securities arbitration and litigation, construction litigation, employment litigation, intellectual property litigation, shareholder litigation, and many other kinds of business and other disputes.. Ms. Fernandez regularly resolves EEOC matters in mediation for her corporate Clients.. Ms. Fernandez's personal philosophy is in litigation prevention; however, when litigation is necessary, she believes it should be quickly initiated, and strongly and aggressively prosecuted, with an attention to detail.. Ms. Fernandez is a 2005 Trial Lawyers College graduate, trained by Gerry Spence, as well as a 2015 Trojan Horse graduate, trained by Dan Ambrose and Alejandro Blanco.  Ms. Fernandez is a former federal judicial law clerk for Chief Judge Richard C. Erwin for the United States District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina, and spent a year seated beside, and writing opinions for, a senior federal judge.. Ms. Fernandez is a graduate of Harvard and Columbia Law Schools, where she was twice a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar for academic excellence, and is admitted to the bars of New York and Georgia.. Ms. Fernandez assists Clients with all aspects of business law and business litigation.. Technology Law. The Fernandez Law Firm's Client focus is on start-up technology firms.  The Firm's Clients include innovators who have developed and continue to develop new technologies in many diverse areas such as: genetic testing for dangerous diseases; software and outage management systems for electric utilities; hardware, desks, and learning systems for disabled and chronically hospitalized children; enterprise personnel software; security software for protecting children and schools from active shooters.. Many of our Clients are entrepreneurs: medical doctors; inventors; restauranteurs; business owners --- all of whom purchase, lease, license, or sell technologies, and come to us for our experience in negotiating and drafting contracts, and finding methods of financing those large purchases and leases.. Employment Law. We regularly prepare employment agreements and 1099 consulting agreements to protect our Clients.  We understand the many issues involved in employment law.. Because we have litigated many employment matters, both for the employee and the employer, we have a strong sense of what works.. Accordingly, we draft strong employment agreements.  We try to resolve matters in mediation; but if we cannot, we litigate forcefully.. We have successfully mediated many claims at the EEOC for our corporate Clients.. Contracts. The basis of any relationship is the contract, and we have negotiated and drafted thousands of contracts.  Because we litigate, we know what needs to be in a contract to protect our Clients.. The Firm's practice includes licensing and intellectual property and technology law. We regularly assists technology and other companies seeking to create, license or exploit intellectual property, including start-ups, with many aspects of their businesses in such matters as: formation, financing, re-financing, shareholders, shareholder agreements, operating agreements, contracts, and intellectual property matters; negotiating and developing substantial commercial agreements and contracts; preparing licensing and maintenance agreements for software and intellectual property licensors and licensees; drafting NDAs and Confidentiality Agreements surrounding IP and IT; litigating IT and commercial business issues in the state, superior, appeals and federal courts in Georgia; negotiating leases for equipment and real property; purchasing real estate; purchasing airplanes; assisting clients in the management of employees and contractors; and leading  in all areas of mergers and acquisitions work, from due diligence, negotiations, and closings.. The Firm's Principal. Ms. Fernandez began her career as a litigator and has won millions of dollars in  judgments, verdicts, and awards in the courts of Georgia and the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.. Ms. Fernandez  has had great success with technology, commercial, contract, employment, confidentiality, trade secret, intellectual property matters, and libel and defamation in the State, Superior, and Federal Courts in Georgia as well as the Court of Appeals of Georgia.. She is a 2005 graduate of the month-long Trial Lawyers College, run by famed trial lawyer Gerry Spence in Dubois, Wyoming, as well as the Trojan Horse Method, taught by Dan Ambrose and Alejandro Blanco.. Ms. Fernandez’s litigation work includes successful board room negotiations, mediations, and arbitrations, as well as victories before FINRA and the EEOC, and she has appeared for her Clients at the United States Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia and has successfully resolved these and other matters involving FBI, HUD, and Secret Service.  She has also successfully resolved matters before the Georgia Department of Banking and Finance, the Governor’s Office of Consumer Affairs, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.. Ms. Fernandez practices employment law, and regularly drafts and litigates restrictive covenants, and has successfully mediated many employment matters at the EEOC.  Ms. Fernandez has also successfully obtained MBE certifications for her clients with the City of Atlanta and Georgia Department of Transportation.. Ms. Fernandez has coached U-6 soccer with the United Futbol Academy and is a former director of both of the Hispanic American Center for Economic Development and the Hispanic Contractors Association of Georgia, which she also helped found.. Ms. Fernandez earned her A.B. at Harvard University, where she was an IBM Thomas J. Watson scholar each year.  She earned her Juris Doctor at Columbia University School of Law in the City of New York and was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar her second and third years of law school.  She was also the Admissions Editor of the Columbia Business Law Review.  She served as a federal judicial law clerk to the Hon. Richard C. Erwin, Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina.  She is a Member of the Technology Advisory Group for the State Bar of Georgia President and, as a pro bono matter, successfully negotiated the agreement for the new website for the State Bar of Georgia. Ms. Fernandez is admitted to practice in New York and Georgia, the State and Superior Courts of Georgia, Court of Appeals of Georgia, and the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.