Tequila began her career representing low wage workers in workers’ compensation, unemployment and family law cases in New Mexico.  She served as Labor Law Advisor with the North American Commission for Labor Cooperation Secretariat, an inter-governmental organization created under the NAFTA labor side agreement for five and a half years. While with the CLC, Tequila co-authored a study comparing the laws impacting migrant agricultural workers in Canada, Mexico and the United States, was primary author and project coordinator of a tri-national clear language guide to labor and employment laws for migrant workers in North America and drafted Canadian and U.S. chapters of a study comparing employment discrimination and equal pay laws in North America. She also conducted and supervised research in the area of workers’ compensation and occupational safety and health laws in North America, and organized or co-organized specialized focus groups and meetings on migrant worker issues, comparative workplace discrimination and equal pay law, women workers’ issues and special issues involving women workers and long-term disabilities.

Tequila is a strong advocate for lifelong education. She has an LL.M. in International and Comparative Law from  George Washington University Law School in Washington, DC, Her thesis was a comparison of several non-governmental and inter-governmental mechanisms utilized in response to suppression of workers and trade union rights in the State of Puebla, Mexico. She also has an LL.M. in International and European Labour Law from Tilburg University School of Law in Tilburg, Netherlands.  Her thesis assessed the efficacy of European policies in improving the working lives of racial and ethnic minorities in the European Union.  
 

Tequila holds a Nonprofit Management Executive Certificate from Georgetown University’s Center for Public and Non-Profit Leadership (2006), attended the Society for Human Resource Management’s course in Global Human Resources Management (2007) and spent summers studying International Human Rights Law in Oxford, England, Comparative European Union Law at the University of Paris X as part of Golden Gate University’s Paris Summer Law Program and Mexican Law at the University of Guanajuato in Mexico. In 2002, she attended the Center for Creative Leadership’s Women’s Leadership course in Greensboro, North Carolina.

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Tequila’s publications include NAFTA and the NAALC: Twenty-Five Years of North American Trade - Labour Linkage (co-authored with Lance Compa, 2019), “An Introduction to Mexican Workers’ Compensation Law for the U.S. Workers’ Compensation Practitioner” (IAIABC Journal, Fall 2003) and “Cross-Border Workers’ Compensation and Social Security Policy in North America: An Analysis of the NAFTA Trucking Dispute through the eyes of a Workers’ Compensation Practitioner” (IAIABC Journal, Spring 2005). She has lectured frequently on international labor rights and trade law, including teaching a short course on U.S., Canadian and North American Labor Law to lawyers at the Autonomous University of Sinaloa Law School in Culiacán, Mexico and at the University of Guanajuato School of Law in Guanajuato, Mexico.