Tequila Brooks, Esq.

Tequila Brooks is an attorney and consultant living and working in the Washington, DC area.  Her areas of expertise are comparative and international labor and employment law, with a special emphasis in U.S., Canadian and Mexican workplace law, including employment discrimination, equal pay and affirmative action/employment equity law and workers’ compensation and occupational safety and health, the impact of free trade on worker rights and immigrant worker rights.  Ms. Brooks has spoken widely about these issues in English and Spanish throughout North America.  She is currently an L.L.M. candidate in the International and Comparative Law Program of the George Washington University School of Law in Washington, D.C. 

Ms. Brooks served as Labor Law Advisor with the Commission for Labor Cooperation Secretariat for five and a half years.  Better known as the NAFTA labor secretariat, the Commission for Labor Cooperation Secretariat is a tri-national inter-governmental organization that reports to and is funded by the labor ministries of Canada, Mexico and the United States and was established under the labor side agreement to the North American Free Trade Agreement 1995.

While with the Secretariat, Ms. Brooks co-authored a study comparing the laws impacting migrant agricultural workers in Canada, Mexico and the United States (2003), was primary author and project coordinator of a tri-national clear language guide to labor and employment laws for migrant workers in North America (2004) and wrote the Canadian and U.S. chapters of a study comparing employment discrimination and equal pay laws in North America.  She also conducted and supervised research in the area of workers’ compensation and occupational safety and health laws in North America, and organized or co-organized specialized focus groups and meetings on migrant worker issues, comparative discrimination law, women workers’ issues and special issues involving women workers and long-term disabilities.

Prior to joining the Commission for Labor Cooperation Secretariat, Ms. Brooks practiced workers’ compensation law on behalf of workers in the state of New Mexico.  Ms. Brooks received her J.D. and M.A. in Latin American Studies from the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1997 and her B.A. from St. John’s College in Annapolis, Maryland in 1991.  Ms. Brooks was born near Taos, New Mexico and graduated from Santa Fe High School in Santa Fe, New Mexico.