Sonia R. Martin

Sonia R. Martin is Chief Executive Officer of Dentons US and a member of Dentons' Global and US Boards, the Global Management Committee and the US Region Management Committee. Her primary practice area is Commercial Litigation, and she is a versatile litigator with two decades of experience handling complex commercial litigation matters in California.

Her experience includes disputes with the Attorney General of California, public entities, disputes under California Business & Professions Code section 17200 et seq., and consumer class actions. She has successfully tried cases in state and federal court, argued matters before the California Court of Appeal and the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and obtained published decisions in many cases of first impression.

Her representative experience includes defending an insurer against a regulatory enforcement action brought by the California Department of Insurance, defeating class certification in numerous putative class actions under California's Unfair Competition Act, and securing a preliminary injunction against the City and County of San Francisco arising from a public bidding process involving San Francisco Airport. She also tried to final judgment a class action against California's largest underwritten title company involving more than 270,000 class members, obtaining a decision in favour of the defendant on statutory immunity grounds that was affirmed in full on appeal.

Other matters include defending insurers in bad faith and unfair competition lawsuits, serving as trial counsel in a multi-week confidential arbitration of a trade secrets dispute involving a $99 million damages claim, and obtaining a published opinion from the California Court of Appeal in Seltzer v. Barnes, 182 Cal. App. 4th 953 (2010), on which the trial court awarded her client in excess of $121,165 in attorneys' fees.

Her recognition includes being named among the Most Influential Women in Bay Area Business by the San Francisco Business Times (2023), a Trailblazer – West by The American Lawyer (2022), a BTI Client Service All-Star (2020, 2022, 2023), and a Recognized Lawyer by The Legal 500 (2021–2023). She was also named one of California's Top 50 Most Powerful Women in Law and one of the Top 50 Women Lawyers in California by the National Diversity Council (2016), and listed by Benchmark Litigation as a "Future Star" in California.

She holds a JD, cum laude, Order of the Coif, from UC Hastings College of the Law (1997) and a BA, magna cum laude, from the University of California, San Diego (1994).