Natalie R. Alameddine

Blank Rome • Los Angeles


Natalie R. Alameddine is a partner in the labor & employment practice at Blank Rome LLP. She defends employers in single-plaintiff and class action cases along with counseling on a wide range of L&E matters. 


She previously served as a law clerk for the National Labor Relations Board, a clinic counselor and legal advocate for the Employment Law Center in San Francisco, and a judicial extern for Judge Bobbi Tillmon of the Los Angeles Superior Court. She is a board member of Arab American Lawyers Association of Southern California.


Alameddine joined Blank Rome in 2017. In 2022, she was named a Daily Journal Top 40 Under 40 honoree. Her identical twin, Amanda T. Alameddine, is a trademark lawyer at Fenwick & West LLP.


An immediate concern currently is counseling clients on the reform provisions of the new Private Attorneys General Act, signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom on July 1. "There are a lot of good changes," Alameddine said. "For instance, formerly, an aggrieved employee could sue even though he or she had not experienced the full range of violations at issue -- now that's eliminated."


In a recent success, Alameddine briefed, argued and obtained an appellate reversal of an unfavorable arbitration ruling by a trial judge. Helfet v. Motive Energy Inc. et al., B331359 (2d DCA, op. filed July 1. 2024).


Alameddine and Blank Rome were retained after a previous firm failed to persuade the judge to order the matter to arbitration. "I substituted in, we briefed the case and I argued it. And the court issued its ruling a week later," she said. She credited associate Nicole N. Wentworth with significant help with the case.


One issue involved the failure of Alameddine's client, Motive Energy, to sign the employment contract. Another was an injunctive relief exception to the arbitration clause. The trial judge found that the lack of Motive's signature on the contract called into question its very existence. And she ruled that the injunctive relief exception, taken together with a fees and costs clause, constituted multiple unconscionable provisions that made the contract unenforceable.


Wrong, ruled a three-judge appellate panel, holding that evidence of an agreement to arbitrate overrides the absence of Motive's signature. And the injunctive relief exception was not unconscionable because it has a legitimate commercial justification; the fees and costs provision should have been severed from the rest of the contract, nullifying the trial court's conclusion that multiple unconscionable provisions were present.


"The justices agreed with me," Alameddine said. "The opinion clarifies what had not been clear before." She and her colleagues are preparing to ask that the opinion be published so that it will have precedential force. 


"The client was extremely pleased," Alameddine said.


-- John Roemer