Firm Directory

Pepperdine University School of Law
    (J.D. 1981)

 

Patricia Lynn Paniccia

Patricia ("Patti") Paniccia is Of Counsel to Connon Wood Scheidemantle LLP and is a member of the bar in two states, California and Hawaii, an author and freelance journalist, an employment law consultant for small to mid-size businesses, and an adjunct professor at Pepperdine Law School in Malibu, California where she currently teaches Employment Discrimination Law and Gender and the Law, and has taught Communications Law. She also occasionally works as a faculty advisor at Pepperdine’s Straus Institute of Dispute Resolution, assisting individual students who are required to publish for their LL.M. or Master degrees in Dispute Resolution.  In 2000, she was the recipient of Pepperdine's David McKibbin Excellence in Teaching Award.  From 1996 to 2003, she sat on the Pepperdine Law School Board of Visitors, and in 1997, founded Pepperdine’s Patti Paniccia Scholarship, which financially assists law students with minor children.

In 2000, Ms. Paniccia was sent on a nationwide book tour by Ballantine/Random House for her book, Work Smarts for Women: The Essential Sex Discrimination Survival Guide, and interviewed as a legal expert on workplace discrimination by many national television networks, including ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, and Oxygen; on local television news shows in New York, Chicago Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, and many other smaller cities; on radio newscasts in cities throughout the country, including KNX News Los Angeles, KGO News Radio San Francisco, and the nationally syndicated Michael Medved show; on Internet programs such as AOL’s Business Know-How Forum; and in newspapers across the country, including USA Today, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, Honolulu Star Bulletin, Cleveland Plain Dealer, and others. She was also featured in Redbook magazine.

As a journalist, Ms. Paniccia has her print work published regularly in a wide variety of national magazines, journals, and newspapers, including Los Angeles Times Magazine. She was a broadcast journalist for more than a decade. Specifically, she was a television network correspondent for CNN until 1993. Prior to that, she worked at KCOP-TV News in Los Angeles as a general assignment reporter and specialist in legal issues (1985-1988). She also worked at KEYT-ABC in Santa Barbara as a general assignment reporter and weekend anchor (1983-1984). She has covered news stories throughout the western United States, and conducted countless interviews with national and international newsmakers.

Her dual background in law and journalism has given her a firsthand knowledge of and a personal experience with many First Amendment/Press issues. She was an appointee to the American Bar Association Standing Conference of Lawyers and Representatives of the Media (1988-1991) and was 1988 Vice-Chair of the American Bar Association Young Lawyers Division Law and Media Committee.  She is a former member of the California State Bar Committee on Public Affairs (1985-1987), and helped form its subcommittee on Bench/Bar/Media.  She was also an appointee to the California State Bar Fair Trial Free Press Committee (1984-1985 - now defunct).  In 1985, she founded the Santa Barbara County Bench/Bar/Media Committee, which continues on today as the primary communication vehicle among judges, lawyers, and journalists in Santa Barbara County.

In 2003, she was invited to give a presentation and consultation to the Board of Governors of the California State Bar regarding media issues. In addition, she has given numerous other speeches and first amendment/media workshops for nonprofit legal organizations, including the California Judges Association, State Bar of California Conference of Bar Leaders, California State Bar Annual Meeting, and Women Lawyers Association of Los Angeles.

She received an Emmy nomination from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in 1987 for an investigative series on the Los Angeles court system's failure to deal adequately with infant abuse.  She also received the National Clarion Award from the Association for Women in Communication for outstanding reporting.

Ms. Paniccia also works as a media consultant to lawyers, law firms, Fortune 500 companies, and the U.S. Government. Working in tandem with KFWB Los Angeles radio news anchor Jack Popejoy, she trains and assists clients in understanding, garnering, deflecting and/or enhancing media coverage.

She also does pro bono work as an arbitrator for the Better Business Bureau, where she presides over consumer vs. manufacturer automobile disputes. 

She is a California state licensed real estate broker, and has developed and currently manages commercial and residential properties in four states. She is responsible for writing and negotiating leases, conducting commercial property tax evaluation appeals, obtaining conditional use permits and zone changes, interacting with local land use planning commissions and staff to obtain or appeal permits or variances, and overseeing commercial escrows.

Ms. Paniccia received her Juris Doctor from Pepperdine University School of Law in Malibu, California in 1981, and B.A. in Communications from the University of Hawai'i at Manoa in 1977.  Prior to attending law school, she was ranked as one of the top women professional surfers in the world. She helped form and competed on the first ever women's international surfing tour in 1976, and thereafter. In 2004, she was featured by the Huntington Beach International Surfing Museum as part of its exhibit on "Legendary Surfer Women." In 2005, she was honored for her contributions to women’s pro surfing by Roxy Sportswear at the kick-off dinner of the women’s world pro surfing tour. In 2006, she was honored by the Hawai’i State Senate with a Certificate of Recognition and Appreciation for her contributions to the sport of surfing.