Richard Payne

Richard Payne is a civil litigator with more than ten years of experience in the areas of business tort; construction law; construction defect; insurance coverage; and employment law on behalf of plaintiffs and defendants in the areas of wrongful termination, discrimination, and sexual harassment. Mr. Payne has extensive experience in all forms of alternative dispute resolution, including binding arbitration and mediation. Mr. Payne had been admitted to all California Courts, the Northern, Central, and Eastern Federal District Courts; the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals; and the U.S. Supreme Court.

Mr. Payne is a graduate of the San Francisco Art Institute and received an M.F.A. from Stanford University, where he was the recipient of a Stern Grant and an Art Department Fellowship. He earned his Juris Doctorate Degree from the University of California, Hastings College of Law, where he received the Cali Excellence for the Future Award and the American Jurisprudence Award. While at Hastings, Mr. Payne was the Associate Articles Editor of the Hastings International and Comparative Law Review, and a member of Moot Court Board. Following law school, Mr. Payne was a law clerk for the Hon. William H. Orrick of the Northern District Court.

Before attending law school, Mr. Payne was a successful actor. He performed in film, theatrical productions, and television commercials in New York and Los Angeles, and appeared as a regular character on television soap operas, including As the World Turns, One Life to Live, Guiding Light, and Another World. Mr. Payne is an avid boxer and a second-degree black belt in the martial art of Aikido.