Brandon Martin

Brandon Martin was born in Bakersfield and attended the local public schools before graduating Summa Cum Laude from UCLA in Communications with highest honors. While at UCLA he hosted a radio talk show called, Law Talk and spent time in Washington D. C. as an intern on the House Ways and Means committee. He also participated in the Plato Society debating outstanding issues of the day with a focus on increasing quality of life for retired professionals. Following UCLA, Brandon attended law school at UC Berkeley where he participated in the Federalists Society and worked with the Samuelson Law & Technology Clinic. Following law school, Brandon moved back to Bakersfield where he practiced land use, real estate law and litigation with Borton Petrini, LLP. While at Borton Petrini he handled insurance defense cases and large personal injury litigation including helping settle a $12.5 million pedestrian accident in Sutter County and wrongful death of a football player at Desert High. The litigation involved taking depositions, making and defending motions, preparing interrogatories and requests for admissions, production of documents, writing writs and many other activities that district attorneys are seldom involved in since they do criminal work and do not deal with the Code of Civil Procedure. While at Borton Petrini he also helped with the entitlement and annexation of large swaths of the City of Bakersfield. Brandon was recruited by the International Law Firm of Paul Hastings to join a team of land use attorneys who were helping entitle massive development projects. He moved to Los Angeles and worked with that team until Heather was accepted at UC Santa Barbara. Brandon then moved to the Santa Barbara office of Brownstein & Hyatt, one of the Nations largest real estate law firms. The time was not particularly good as the real estate industry collapsed. Fortunately Heather had graduated and Brandon moved back to Bakersfield where he became the Director of CSUBs Small Business Development Center. During this time Brandon also started his own business counseling firm, developed internet sites, obtained his real estate brokers license and continued to handle law matters with his fathers law firm. Also during that time, Brandon became a member and ultimately chairman of the Kern County Planning Commission where he served until resigning to become Chief of Staff for Supervisor David Couch. During the last decade, Brandon has been organizing and putting on a series of symposiums called Kern Talk and has helped organize and acted as communications director for the Bakersfield Business Conference and the Bakersfield Rock & Country Music & Arts Festival.