Michael Reiss

Mike Reiss is available to serve as a mediator in individual cases and class actions involving employment issues, claims of discrimination, wage and hour violations and civil rights actions under federal or state laws.

Before coming to Davis Wright Tremaine, where he headed the firm's employment litigation group for more than 20 years, Mike was a law professor at the University of Southern California, where he taught Constitutional Law and Employment Discrimination Law; a legal services attorney with California Rural Legal Assistance; and the EEOC's first Regional Attorney in Seattle. Throughout his career Mike has been a mentor and a teacher of lawyering skills to lawyers and law students, and a frequent lecturer on effective mediation techniques.

For over a decade, Mike has served as a mediator in class actions and individual cases involving employment disputes and other civil rights matters.

Mike's many years of experience as a teacher, counselor, and advocate representing individuals, the government and employers of all sizes makes him particularly effective as a mediator. He is familiar with the goals and perspectives of individual claimants, businesses and government entities. He is creative in seeking solutions to problems, and he is patient and resourceful in working with the parties involved in a dispute. One of his proudest moments as a mediator came at the end of a long day when one of the parties said to him: "You are a really good listener."

Representative Experiences

Among his experiences, Mike has successfully mediated:

• Numerous class actions and individual matters—at every stage of litigation and prior to suit being filed—involving claims of discrimination and violations of wage and hour laws
• A multi-party sex discrimination and harassment lawsuit involving twelve individual plaintiffs in four different cities
• Multi-party litigation involving the EEOC, private plaintiffs' attorneys and management-side lawyers
• A civil rights class action involving multiple plaintiffs represented by immigrant rights advocates and government agencies represented by attorneys from the Department of Justice and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services

References

Mike's references as a mediator—from attorneys representing plaintiffs, management, legal services, and government agencies—are available on request. After successfully mediating a difficult class action, one of the attorneys wrote: "Thanks for your invaluable help in bringing it home. I'm not sure any other mediators I've worked with could have bridged the gap given the facts, claims, and lawyers involved!"