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Penn Payne - mediator and arbitrator for employment and commercial disputes.
Penn Payne
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Penn Payne serves as a mediator and arbitrator for employment and commercial disputes, and as an independent investigator of employee complaints and workplace disputes. By temperament and training, Penn is ideally suited to serve in these neutral capacities. Known for her fairness and skill in obtaining the trust of each party, she has cultivated the ability to be open-minded and to analyze all sides of a dispute. Her proficiency as an arbitrator, mediator and investigator is based on 28 years of representing both plaintiffs and defendants in litigation, negotiation, arbitration and mediation, and providing sound business judgment and common sense solutions to her clients. She has been a mediator since 1998, an investigator since 2000, and an arbitrator since 2002.

As an active litigator for 28 years Penn had extensive experience not only in employment litigation but also in general business and commercial litigation, representing parties in antitrust, securities, trade secrets, business fraud and other business torts, business dissolution, creditors’ rights and bankruptcy, partnership and fiduciary duty, UCC and contract cases. The types of employment issues she handled when she represented parties are the same as the issues she now handles as a mediator and arbitrator:
  • sexual and racial harassment 
  • discrimination on the basis of sex, age, race, national origin, ethnicity, pregnancy, religion and disability 
  • retaliation 
  • employee classification and wage and hour disputes under the Fair Labor Standards Act, including arbitrating a collective action 
  • restrictive covenants (non-compete, non-solicit, trade secrets and confidentiality agreements)
  • employment contracts and change of control agreements 
  • stock options and other forms of executive compensation 
  • the Family and Medical Leave Act 
  • the Equal Pay Act 
  • intentional infliction of emotional distress 
  • invasion of privacy 
  • negligent hiring and retention 
  • civil assault and battery

Over the past 12 years, Penn's expertise has been recognized by her peers through her selection as a Fellow of the College of Commercial Arbitrators through her inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America; Who's Who Legal USA - Management Labour and Employment; Who's Who Legal USA - Arbitration; Georgia's Legal Elite published by Georgia Trend Magazine; and The Guide to the Best Attorneys in Georgia published by Atlanta Magazine. Perhaps the recognition that has meant the most to Penn is that several lawyers and law firms, including a nationwide employment law firm, selected her to represent them when they were faced with litigation and threatened litigation themselves. Penn has spoken at numerous continuing legal education programs discussing employment-related topics, including presentations to the Corporate Counsel Institute and to the Georgia Chapter of the American Corporate Counsel Association about methods to facilitate early settlement of disputes.


She earned her undergraduate degree from Stanford University and her law degree with honors from Emory University School of Law, where she was elected to the Order of the Coif and taught legal research and writing to first-year students. She was previously a partner at Kirkley & Payne, LLP and Vaughan, Roach, Davis, Birch & Murphy, and was Of Counsel to Nations, Yates & Toman.


Penn has been active in numerous professional, civic and charitable organizations. The District Judges for the Northern District of Georgia selected her to join the Board of the Federal Defender Program, and she subsequently chaired the Board and was a member of the Executive Committee. She served on the Boards of the Atlanta Bar Foundation and the Atlanta Bar Association's Labor and Employment Section, on the Emory Law School Alumni Council, the State Bar's Rules of Evidence Study Committee, the City of Atlanta Charter Review Commission, and she was a Master of the Lamar American Inn of Court and on its Executive Committee. Penn has been a dedicated volunteer with the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation International and has served as an Officer and Executive Committee member of its Board of Directors.

Penn Payne published a practical approach to Early Settlement through the Corporate Counsel Institute.
"Disputes Management: A Process for Reaching Early Settlements - An Outside Counsel's View" 
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