Mitchell D. Benjamin

Mitchell D. Benjamin was born and raised in New York City. He focuses primarily on the practice areas of commercial litigation and wage and hour law. He has represented over a thousand employees in a variety of employment related disputes, including unpaid overtime and minimum wages, sexual harassment, discrimination claims based on race, age, gender, national origin, or disability, and retaliation cases in both the state and federal courts.

He is, first and foremost, concerned with the unique interests of each individual, business and union which comes to him for help. In addition to litigating employee claims, he uses his mediation skills to resolve claims by settlement and agreement when possible. Many employment matters do not need to be litigated at all. In fact, much of Mr. Benjamin's employment law experience is put to use by negotiating settlements and severance packages for employees in Atlanta and throughout Georgia. However, Mr. Benjamin will aggressively litigate cases in court when necessary.

A significant portion of Mr. Benjamin's practice consists of representing executives in the negotiation of severance packages with both private and publicly held companies.

Mr. Benjamin frequently represents public safety officers, such as police, firefighters, Emergency Medical Technicians and paramedics in overtime cases brought under the Fair Labor Standards Act ("FLSA") as well as handling their grievances, appeals and civil service hearings. Mr. Benjamin also represents the Firefighter Unions in Gwinnett, Dekalb, Cobb and Coweta counties.

In 2008, Mr. Benjamin represented over 600 City of Atlanta police officers in an overtime lawsuit resulting in a settlement of $7,500,000. Mr. Benjamin has also been hired by proactive businesses and public entities to review their overtime and wage policies and make recommendations to bring them into compliance of the law before they are sued.

The commercial litigation aspect of Mr. Benjamin's practice consists of representing small businesses (those with usually less than fifty employees) in such situations as breach of contract disputes, commercial torts, and landlord-tenant disagreements. Mr. Benjamin has represented such clients as internet service provider DV2, Inc., Global Net Access, Bass Cat Music, and Southern Behavioral Group, Inc. Admitted to practice in New York in 1994 and in Georgia in 1996, Mr. Benjamin is a 1993 cum laude graduate of the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York City. He obtained his undergraduate degree from the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1989, where he was a member of the National Political Science Honor Society. Mr. Benjamin was elected to the Board of Directors for the National Employment Lawyers Association - Georgia (NELA-GA) in 2004 and was elected as Treasurer for NELA-GA in both 2005 and 2006. He has also been a guest on The Layman's Lawyer on PBS.

E-mail: benjamin@bandblawyers.com