Sylvia M. Arizmendi López de Victoria
smarizmendi@arizmendisanfilippo.com

Ms. Arizmendi was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in 1967. She attended primary and elementary school at Colegio Rosa-Bell in Guaynabo and graduated in 1985 from Academia San José High School, with honors (Salutatorian). She then double-majored in Biology and Psychology at Tufts University in Boston, Massachusetts, graduating Magna Cum Laude in 1989. While at Tufts, she was a member of the Latin American Society, which she also presided for two years. Thereafter she attended the University of Puerto Rico School of Law, where she graduated Magna Cum Laude in 1992. She joined the Puerto Rico Bar Association in 1993. While at the U.P.R., Ms. Arizmendi developed an article analyzing the historical development of the right to public picketing. She later prepared said article for publication in the Howard Law School Journal. See Residential Picketing: Will the Public Forum Follow Us Home, 37 How. L. J. 495 (Spring 1994).

From 1992 to 1993, Ms. Arizmendi was a Law Clerk for the Hon. Federico Hernández Denton, Justice at the Puerto Rico Supreme Court. She then pursued graduate studies in Columbia University at New York. After completing her LL.M. studies there, where she graduated as a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar, she joined the law firm of O’Neill & Borges in June of 1994. She was a partner in its Labor Department from December 1998 until she left to pursue her own private practice in December 2004. In February 2005, together with attorney Rosangela Sanfilippo Resumil, she founded the law firm of Arizmendi & Sanfilippo, where she currently holds her practice.

As part of her practice, Ms. Arizmendi represents corporate clients in litigation before the Puerto Rico and the Federal Courts, as well as before local and federal government agencies. Aside from litigation, Ms. Arizmendi provides legal counsel regarding the application of laws that regulate the workplace and the educational setting. She is a member of the Association of Labor Relations Practitioners. She has lectured on the legal issues that arise in the employment and educational context, including Discrimination, Harassment, the Family and Medical Leave Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Individuals with Disabilities in Employment Act and on the integrated application of these laws.