Mr. Payne is the Chairperson of Rutan & Tucker's Employment and Labor Section. He handles a wide variety of employment-related litigation and counseling on behalf of employers, including wrongful discharge litigation and dispute resolution; wage and hour compliance and class action defense; executive compensation and related disputes; employment discrimination, harassment and retaliation claims; and workplace investigations. Mr. Payne also has extensive experience with unfair competition and protection of trade secrets, helping companies in a variety of industries to protect their information assets and resources through the use of effective policies, enforceable agreements and, when necessary, litigation.
Mr. Payne received his law degree from the College of William and Mary, Marshall-Wythe School of Law, in 1991, where he served as Managing Editor for the William & Mary Law Review and was admitted to the Order of the Coif, an honor he received after graduating in the top 5 percent of his class. Mr. Payne earned a bachelor of science degree in psychology in 1986 from Mary Washington College, where he graduated cum laude, received honors in Religion, and completed a third major course of study in Philosophy.
After earning his law degree, Mr. Payne served as a Law Clerk to the Honorable Rebecca Beach Smith in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Norfolk Division. He then joined Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in Orange County, California, where he practiced for over eight years as an associate and of counsel in the firm’s labor and employment practice group.
Mr. Payne has been consistently selected by his peers as a Southern California "Super Lawyer", and has also named as a "Super Lawyer" for the Corporate Counsel edition in the area of Employment/Labor. He also is a founding member of the Bench & Bar, which is a group of Orange County attorneys and judges who are members of the Alexis de Toqueville Society of the United Way, and he volunteers with the Public Law Center, the Constitutional Rights Foundation, and local community activities.
Please contact Mr. Payne for a list of client references and/or representative matters.
Publications
- "New Written Requirements for Employers," Los Angeles Daily Journal, March 12, 2012