Highly rated by the public and her peers on Martindale-Hubbell, Dorothy Paine was certified by the State Bar of Arizona as a specialist in injury and in wrongful death litigation for 20 years. Today, Ms. Paine is the owner of the Phoenix-based law firm Dorothy Q. Paine, PLLC. Her areas of expertise include insurance defense, mediation and arbitration, settlement cases pro bono for the court, and serving as a judge pro tempore (a temporary or substitute judge) as needed. A veteran lawyer, she spent nearly 35 years leading insurance defense and some commercial litigation cases, has been involved in more than 50 trials in Arizona’s populous Maricopa County, and has had the distinction of being listed in Super Lawyers.
A respected authority in her field, Ms. Paine has been a trial skills teacher and is the author of the Maricopa County Bar Association article “Who, What, When, Where, How, Why of Mediation: What to Do and What Not to Do.” Also notably, she was asked to apply to join the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA), of whose existence she was initially unaware before learning that the people involved were individuals she always respected and even feared. Ultimately, she rose to become the first female president of ABOTA, a past role she remembers proudly.
For Ms. Paine, the most rewarding aspect of her profession is providing personalized assistance to individuals during challenging times. During her years working on trials, her clients were the insured people of insurance companies that were being sued. The targeted demographic was middle-class Americans striving to work and make ends meet. She aimed to help with each case and educate every client on how the system works. Her goal was to offer guidance for people to navigate their problems so that they could achieve the best possible outcome and receive fair treatment. Civically responsible as well, Ms. Paine volunteers with the Foster Care Review Board in Phoenix, Arizona.
In the coming years, Ms. Paine plans to continue her work in mediation. Her aim, too, is to resume teaching trial skills at law schools, which she enjoyed and is an expert at executing. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, she visited a law school in the Czech Republic for two weeks to teach the same subject. She was scheduled to also teach in Hungary, but her trip was canceled due to the pandemic. In preparation for her own storied career, Ms. Paine earned a Doctor of Jurisprudence and a Bachelor of Arts in history, both from Arizona State University.