Past Board Member - Raul Salinas
Mr. Salinas is the Managing Partner in the Los Angeles office of Adorno Yoss Alvarado & Smith. With more than 13 offices and 250 attorneys, it is the nation's largest minority owned law firm. He obtained a B.A. in Business Administration from Loyola Marymount University in 1982. In 1985, Mr. Salinas received his J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center.
Mr. Salinas has broad experience representing Fortune 250 clients in employment and complex business litigation proceedings. He regularly advises corporate management in matters pertaining to age, gender, and ethnic discrimination, claims of retaliation and hostile work environment, wrongful termination, and claimed violations of various state and federal labor statutes. He also advises numerous international corporate clients from Latin America doing business in California and elsewhere.
Mr. Salinas has assisted and participated in trials in state and federal courts, and has handled numerous contractual/binding arbitrations in domestic and international matters. He has lectured on contractual arbitration agreements and is knowledgeable in all aspects of various alternative dispute resolution mechanisms. Mr. Salinas is admitted to practice in all California state courts and the United States District Courts for the Northern, Central and Southern Districts of California, and in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Mr. Salinas recovered nearly $15 million on behalf of a southeast municipality involving conflict of interest improprieties. His recovery of $8.56 million on behalf of a city against a former waste hauler stands among the largest conflict of interest awards ever.
Mr. Salinas is active in a number of civic and community organizations. From 1993-1996, he served as a member of the California State Bar's Judicial Nominees Evaluation Commission, which evaluates attorneys desiring to be judges. He has volunteered his legal services in a number of matters for Public Counsel and California Lawyers for the Arts, and has served as pro bono counsel in the formation of several nonprofit community organizations, including LA based Hispanas Organized for Political Equality (HOPE). From 1992-1994, Mr. Salinas served as President of the Loyola Marymount Mexican American Alumni Association and was instrumental in creating an endowment fund through the University. In 1998, he received the LMU Alumni Role Model Award. More recently, LMU honored Mr. Salinas with the 2008 LA Leaders/LMU Distinguished Alumni Award. From 1995-1998, Mr. Salinas served on the Board of Directors for the Los Angeles Children's Museum. In 2001, White Memorial Hospital recognized him as "Man of the Year" for his work in the community. He is a former Board Chair of The East L.A. Classic Theater, a performing arts organization focused on inner city kids. In 2005-2006, Mr. Salinas also served on the Pasadena Task Force on Good Government, which made recommendations to the city's conflict of interest ordinance.
He is a founder of the California Hispanic Corporate Council Leadership Institute, an organization whose mission is to increase minority and women representation in corporate senior management positions in public and private sectors. He also serves as a board member of the Los Angeles Universal Preschool, a $100 million annual preschool organization, and is a member of its Finance/Audit and Developmental Committees. Mr. Salinas is also a Member of the Governing Board of White Memorial Hospital in Boyle Heights. He serves on the Boards of the ABC Coalition, the San Gabriel Valley Boy Scouts of America Council, and the East L.A. YMCA.
Mr. Salinas is married to Maria Salinas, a 1987 graduate from LMU. His wife runs a successful consulting firm advising Fortune 500 companies on federal reporting guidelines relating to SEC regulations. They have four boys and reside in Pasadena, California.
