Cristina Mathews - Attorney
I have joined the law firm of Mallison & Martinez, a Bay Area workers’ rights law firm.
As a Mallison & Martinez attorney, I represent workers throughout the state. However, I have a particular interest in representing Mendocino County workers, and am based at Mallison & Martinez’s satellite office located in Fort Bragg, in coastal Mendocino County.
About me:
I received my law degree from Berkeley Law in 2019, with a certificate in Public Interest and Social Justice. Before joining Mallison & Martinez, I spent six years as a rural solo attorney, with practice areas in workers’ rights, family law (including as court-appointed attorney representing children in family law cases), and estate planning and probate. I also worked as a Mendocino County Superior Court Self-Help Center attorney, helping people without attorneys represent themselves, primarily in family law matters. Before and during law school I advocated for workers and consumers at public interest law firms.
Before becoming a lawyer, I spent two decades as an educator, half of that time as an English professor at Bloomsburg University in Pennsylvania. My goals as a lawyer are the same as those that guided me as an educator: to develop the power and voice of the people I work with. I learned I could do that best when I listened well to my students and enabled them to direct their own education. When I was a professor, I had an excellent table in my office, one big enough that I could sit beside my students as we worked together on their writing. I didn’t bring that table with me to Fort Bragg, but I did bring that collaborative attitude.
I received a B.A. Summa Cum Laude from Yale College and a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from SUNY Stony Brook. The Berkeley Journal of Employment and Labor Law published my article “Unlocking the Farmhouse Gate,” about California farmworkers’ access to legal services. I am a member of the California Employment Lawyers Association and participated in the Sustainable Economies Law Center legal fellows program. As a representative of the California Low-Income Consumer Coalition, I advocated for regulations that benefit low-income consumers.
I am proud to have served on a school board, raised a barn with my brother, and planted community trees. I lived in Point Reyes Station as a young person, and since then have lived in Orizaba, Mexico; the Bay Area; and northeastern Pennsylvania, among other places. I am glad to call Fort Bragg home.
