Mediation Expertise
Areas of Expertise
Employment
Harassment
Discrimination
Retaliation
Breach of Contract
Business Disputes
Spanish-Speaking
Wage/Hour Class Actions
Landlord/Tenant
Partnership Disputes
Family/Divorce
PAGA Claims
Multi-Cultural Competence
Mediates on Zoom
Claudia Viera is an effective and dedicated attorney-mediator who focuses on employment, contract and business disputes. Since 2001, Ms. Viera has mediated nearly a thousand tough legal disputes. She works actively with both attorneys and parties to help them achieve a better resolution than either side would achieve in court. Ms. Viera honed her skills as an employment attorney with Littler Mendelson and is known for her patience and excellence in resolving high-emotion conflicts.
Ms. Viera has represented defendants and plaintiffs in harassment cases and uses her understanding of the complex dynamics on both sides of the table to resolve disputes. Her more than 15 years as a mediator enhance her risk analysis discussions and help create early opportunities for settlement.
Ms. Viera encourages true cost benefit analysis of litigation alternatives as she works to orient clients toward settlement. She also promotes effective communication and increased understanding between parties in conflict through empathetic listening. Ms. Viera’s most recent work includes race harassment and discrimination, disability discrimination, wrongful termination, sexual harassment, retaliation, business dissolutions of partnerships, age discrimination, wage and hour class actions and landlord-tenant disputes.
Multi-Cultural Competence. Ms. Viera mediates in Spanish. She lived for years in foreign countries - Spain, Germany, The Czech Republic, Britain and Guatemala. Those experiences abroad make her an excellent choice to mediate cross-national disputes and taught her the ability to connect with diverse parties in mediation. Ms. Viera has extensive experience with pre-litigation disputes in workplaces and among co-owners or business partners.
“ Claudia Viera has served as mediator on a number of my plaintiff-side cases during the past decade. In each of these cases, Claudia’s skills contributed tremendously to the ultimate resolution of the cases. Several of these cases involved claims of sex, age and race harassment and discrimination. Others involved various wage and hour violations. Claudia is smart and tenacious, and she has the mediation skills needed to help attorneys and their clients evaluate the risks and benefits of further litigation.
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In this video, Claudia Viera describes how she works with mediation clients in employment, contract and business disputes.
Legal Experience
Prior to becoming a full-time neutral in 2004, Ms. Viera practiced employment law and was an acclaimed trainer at Littler Mendelson (1998-2004), where she dealt with labor and employment issues, including disputes arising under Title VII, the Family and Medical Leave Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, wage and hour laws, employment contracts and a variety of California state statutes. Ms. Viera worked with a variety of Fortune 500 companies in both state and federal court, and later represented plaintiffs. Ms. Viera currently also conducts investigations into complaints of workplace harassment and other claims, in addition to training supervisors on their management responsibilities under the law which supports her excellence as a neutral.