Martha Boyd

As a shareholder in the Labor & Employment Group at Baker Donelson, Martha L. Boyd advises nonprofits, for-profits and public companies on all types of employment issues. To start, Martha assists managers in running the company by creating legalese-free employee handbooks and employment policies that employees can actually understand and follow.

She also advises businesses on their obligations regarding employee leaves of absence, such as absences under the FMLA and military leave laws. She counsels clients on responding to harassment claims, and investigates those claims when an outside investigator is desirable.

Martha guides managers through discipline and discharge, walking them through the process of ensuring that disciplinary action is supported and can be defended later on if necessary. She trains managers and first-line supervisors in a variety of topics through interactive sessions, including discrimination, harassment and how to respond to employee complaints, and provides real-life examples that they can relate to so that the training is meaningful and engaging.

She helps business leaders understand employee and independent contractor worker classification and provides advice for wage and hour compliance. She also advises businesses on the use of noncompetition and nonsolicitation agreements for employees, and how or when those agreements should be leveraged in light of a particular labor pool.

Martha has also performed human resources due diligence in a number of corporate acquisitions. When representing acquiring parties, she reviews all HR policies and practices, identifying potential risk for liability so that the acquiring party can factor that risk into the transaction.

Gaining the familiarity required to provide this service necessarily puts Martha in the position of being able to help prepare the new company’s policies – whether those policies come from the acquired company, the acquiring company or a combination of both – and ensure they reflect best practices.

A U.S. Army veteran who served in Baghdad, Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom, Martha also has a robust government contracts practice, advising companies that are competing for and executing contracts with the U.S. Department of Defense and other federal agencies.

EDUCATION:

• Vanderbilt University Law School, J.D., 1999
• Vanderbilt University, B.A., 1990

ADMISSIONS:

• Tennessee, 2002
• Ohio, 1999
• U.S. District Court for the Eastern, Middle and Western Districts of Tennessee
• U.S. District Court for the Northern and Southern Districts of Ohio
• U.S. District Court for the Eastern and Western Districts of Arkansas
• U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky

Professional Honors & Activities:

• Recipient − Nashville Business Journal’s “Women of Influence” award, 2016
• Recipient − Nashville Business Journal’s inaugural “Veterans Award,” 2015
• Member − Nashville Bar Association
• Former Barrister, Harry Phillips American Inn of Court
• Board Member − Law 360 Employment Editorial Advisory Board, 2013
• Member − Human Resources Committee for the YWCA, 2013 − 2015
• Board President − Operation Stand Down Tennessee