Jeffrey S. Ranen

As chair of Lewis Brisbois’ wage and hour class action group, Ranen is one of the youngest practice group leaders in the 1,100-attorney firm. In 2007 he became the firm’s youngest partner. His book of business features more than $11 million in annual billings.

“It’s been a really rewarding 12-month period,” he said of a time span during which he got two plaintiffs to dismiss their lawsuits while in the witness box.

In February, Ranen represented a nationwide psychiatric hospital company facing claims of sexual harassment and retaliation by a former employee, a recently retired registered nurse. The case went to binding arbitration, where his thorough background investigation of the plaintiff paid off. “You always want to look for a pattern of resume fraud. More often than not you get nothing,” he said. “But this painted a picture so clearly. The plaintiff habitually could not get along with co-workers. She frequently had made sexual harassment claims against much younger men.”

Ranen said the death knell for the plaintiff’s case began at her deposition when she denied ever having made such claims. Then the case went from federal court to before a JAMS arbitrator, retired U.S. District Judge Philip M. Pro. “He has really strict rules,” Ranen said. “He made it like a courtroom, with a witness box and everything. We played the video of her deposition denial to lock her in, then went over her career in chronological order to show the claims she had made. I turned up the heat and suggested straight out that she was lying. She didn’t answer. She looked like she was having a stroke. She got up and left.” The next day her lawyer texted that his client was withdrawing her case. Brown v. Desert Parkway Behavioral Healthcare Hospital LLC, 2:15-cv-02203 (D. Nev., filed Jan. 15, 2016).

In Ranen’s first jury trial of 2016, he defended a hotel management company against claims of gender and pregnancy discrimination and a $2 million damages demand. After two days of trial, his strategy to expose the plaintiff’s dishonesty worked spectacularly when Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge H. Chester Horn Jr., following Ranen’s intense 90-minute cross-examination, informed the plaintiff in chambers that he might have to advise her before the jury of her right to criminal counsel for perjury. Her lawyer persuaded his client to fold. Rebellon v. Dimension Development Corp., BC508978 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed May 14, 2013).

“We’d offered her a sum in the mid-six figures to settle before we noticed an email chain that included the plaintiff’s professional references. We checked those and found that she had lied about a dozen years of her employment history. In effect, her entire life was a lie. She claimed to be an experienced hotel manager, but she’d never held a job above bartender. That case was my most favorite experience.”

— John Roemer