Paul Miner, a native of Southern California, is a professional full-time mediator who specializes in mediating employment cases.
With more than 15 years of employment law litigation experience, Mr. Miner consistently obtained extraordinary results in actions for discrimination, harassment, retaliation, unpaid wages, and wrongful termination.
Mr. Miner has developed a reputation for being a passionate litigator and skilled negotiator. Having represented both employers and employees over his career, Mr. Miner is uniquely situated to quickly evaluate party dynamics, process case facts, identify key legal issues, detect nuanced vulnerabilities, and develop settlement strategies to provide the best chance for a successful outcome in mediation.
Mr. Miner utilizes a combination of facilitative and evaluative approaches to resolve disputes, and he is skilled at helping parties communicate with one another and find common ground.
Experienced employment litigators seek Mr. Miner’s services because of his tenacity, compassion for the parties, and his steadfast commitment to work until the deal is done.
Mr. Miner has worked at various employment law firms over the years, most recently with Barritt Smith Miner LLP, in which the firm made Mr. Miner a partner in 2018. Mr. Miner lives in Orange County with his wife and four children.
Experience Defending Employers
Early in his career, Mr. Miner aggressively defended companies, large and small, in single-plaintiff lawsuits alleging claims of discrimination, harassment, retaliation, and wrongful termination. Mr. Miner took numerous plaintiff depositions, drafted various motions, attended mandatory settlement conferences, and resolved cases at mediation. Mr. Miner even convinced a plaintiff to drop her lawsuit in the middle of her deposition after Mr. Miner discovered the plaintiff submitted a fraudulent expense reimbursement form to her employer. As part of Mr. Miner’s thorough approach to litigation, he frequently conducted on-site investigations and regularly worked with company witnesses to prepare them for depositions. Mr. Miner also defended executives, managers, and supervisors who had been sued in their individual capacities.
In addition to representing companies in both state and federal courts, Mr. Miner represented companies before various administrative state agencies, including the Employment Development Department (EDD) and Department of Labor Standards Enforcement (DLSE). On one occasion, Mr. Miner successfully defended an employer at a high-stakes DLSE hearing in San Francisco. After a lengthy hearing, Mr. Miner convinced the hearing officer to award zero to a sophisticated employee claiming more than $400,000 in unpaid wages, penalties, and interest.
Mr. Miner further successfully defended companies against serious and willful misconduct of employer claims (S&W) before the Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board. In one case, in which a machine unfortunately severed an employee’s fingertips in a work-related accident, Mr. Miner took the claimant’s deposition and got him to concede he knowingly disregarded acknowledged safety policies that would have prevented the injury.
Finally, Mr. Miner regularly advised companies regarding employee discipline, terminations, layoffs, leaves of absence, and the accommodation of employees with disabilities. Mr. Miner also spent a considerable amount of time updating company policies, revising employee handbooks, and drafting memorandums regarding the legality of compensation and commission plans.
Experience Representing Employees
Prior to becoming a full-time mediator, Mr. Miner devoted years of his practice to primarily representing employees in virtually every type of employment dispute (e.g., wrongful termination, harassment, discrimination, failure to accommodate, retaliation, CFRA violations, and unpaid overtime wages). Mr. Miner is known for extracting key admissions from difficult deponents in depositions and building solid liability cases from the evidence obtained during the discovery process. Mr. Miner’s skill, relentless preparation, and ability to piece together a convincing story were instrumental in obtaining consistent results and provided Mr. Miner with the upper hand at hundreds of mediations. Mediators often praised Mr. Miner for his compassion and fierce advocacy. Some mediators even referred personal friends to Mr. Miner because of his extensive knowledge of the law, experience in effectively litigating employment cases, and reputation for obtaining exceptional results for his clients.
Education
Mr. Miner received his juris doctor, cum laude, from Chapman University School of Law. While in law school, Mr. Miner served on the Alternative Dispute Resolution Honor Board, Moot Court Honor Board, Mock-Trial Honor Board, and he served as an editor of Nexus Journal, Chapman’s publication of law and public policy.
Mediation Training
Mr. Miner is a graduate of the Mediating the Litigated Case program offered by the Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution at Pepperdine University School of Law.