Digging Into California Workers’ Compensation (Plus, Career Advice From a True Pro)

Episode Notes

Transcript

Tony Sipp:

Hi folks. Welcome back to the Paralegal Voice. My name is Tony Sipp co-host of the Paralegal Voice podcast, and today’s guest is Nikki Mehrpoo. She is the first and only dual certificated legal specialist in immigration and workers’ comp. She’s an attorney, a former workers’ compensation judge. She’s a professor at law, legal and management expert and private and equity startup consulting as well. Please welcome Nikki.

Nikki Mehrpoo:

Hello Tony. It’s wonderful to be with you today and thank you for having me.

Tony Sipp:

Of course, Nikki and I have known each other for years, so it’s really great to be on with a friend on this podcast so that we can just talk. So one of the things we’re going to talk about is arbitration. Nikki was recently appointed as an arbitrator. So Nikki, if you could tell us a little bit about yourself and your background and how you became an arbitrator.

Nikki Mehrpoo:

Well, to get the whole story, I think we need to always start from the beginning. I’m proud to say I’m a refugee from Iran At the age of eight, my father was bright enough to realize that his daughters can’t go to school in Iran wearing hijab and being under the Islamic Republic. So we left Iran in fear of persecution and came to the United States. And as such my father instilled in us and my mother instilled in us the concept of you live the American dream, you become the American dream and you give it your all. Put that in us every single day of our lives. So as such as a refugee, I had to prove myself. I am the first woman in my family to get a graduate degree. I am the first woman in my family to become a professional in my regard. Luckily for me from day one, literally from day one, from the day I passed theBar, I loved teaching and I loved being able to advocate for the little guy and spent most of my career either fighting for immigrants as an immigration attorney or fighting for the injured worker as a workers’ comp applicant attorney.

Although I’ve been a defense attorney and a workers’ comp judge and a arbitrator, I think my love will always still be fighting for the little guy as an advocate. But that’s our heart and soul. And today I’m starting on a new journey, a new, I was going to call it an abyss, but it’s not an abyss because I know where I’m going and I’m starting a new journey for myself of making sure that I don’t just do for others, but I also make sure I do for what’s healthy for me.

Tony Sipp:

Yes, yes, finding that balance is most important. So thank you for sharing that. I know that you’re an arbitrator, and I know a lot about you already, but the folks listening don’t. As an arbitrator, what do you find the most challenging aspect of your role?

Nikki Mehrpoo:

Being able to listen without bias. I think one of the, as a workers’ compensation judge, when I first started I thought, okay, I know the law and I know how to handle this. When you start listening to witnesses and when you start listening to the facts of the case or the alleged facts of the case, I think the most important thing is to not take our own personal biases in our listening mode. When I’m in listening mode, I want to make sure that I don’t consider what the person is wearing, what the person, where they went to school, where they came from, what they look like. And a lot of times that’s probably the most difficult part, the role of a fact finder in that not bringing our own personal biases and being able to, with an open mind and an open heart, listen to everything and not prejudge anything. And I think that’s, whether you’re judge or an arbitrator or a mediator or any kind of someone who’s resolving conflicts, you’re catching yourself in that regard, I think helps out with the outcome of the whole case.

Tony Sipp:

Completely agree. We all have that elimination of bias. We have implicit bias, right? It’s just part of us. We did a whole show on the elimination of bias, which you can go back and check out with Al de la Cruz. It’s fascinating, absolutely fascinating to see how you have to, as a judge and an arbitrator walk through that process and be fair in the middle. Can you tell us the difference between an arbitrator, a mediator? What do you find people get confused about on that

Nikki Mehrpoo:

Alternative dispute? Resolution has been around for well over 40 years. It was a new thing when I was in law school, if you can believe it. And the most important part of what we need to consider in my role as an arbitrator or a workers’ comp judge is that workers’ comp is the exclusive remedy for any work injury. So what that means is, and a lot of people don’t understand, when you get injured on the job, you can’t file a personal injury case. You can’t go the way you would do any other civil case. You have to do it within the administrative law system within the state of California and your exclusive remedy. It’s a little simple. When we say exclusive remedy, that means the only way you can be remedied, not made whole, just remedied, is through the workers’ compensation system because the workers’ compensation system was the grand compromise between employers and employees.

In addition to the exclusive remedy aspect of it, you could go in front of a judge or you can be part of what’s called the carve out. As a result, you are not within the regular workers’ compensation system. You’re now saying an arbitrator can decide your case, and as such, it should be faster. It should be in a system that is not taking years, even though the workers’ comp system is, I have to say, and I’m going to say this, during Covid, the workers’ comp system was one of the only systems that was up and running very quickly, and we had hearings and we went telephonic and electronic and virtual very quickly. So I was a judge at the time. So right now we have to figure out this carve out system, which means the employer and the employees have basically said, we’re not going to go through the traditional workers’ compensation route.

And as such, we’re going to go in front of an arbitrator and through ombudsman’s and the union’s help how to make the system and the process easier. It doesn’t change the law, it doesn’t change the appeals process, it doesn’t change anything in regards to how it’s applied. But the arbitrator is, and usually the arbitrators are very experienced retired judges or very experienced practitioners. And as such, when the parties are given a list of three arbitrators, the parties collectively decide it’s a system within a system. And it’s not mandatory, it’s not required, it’s just employers or unions coming to an agreement to use this carve out system.

Tony Sipp:

That is interesting. I didn’t know about the covid and how quickly you guys bounced back.

Nikki Mehrpoo:

Well, remember one thing. Workers’ compensation is meant to be a benefits driven system, and as such that means we’re always trying to strive to get benefits to the injured worker, and as such, there’s no downtime. You got to go keep

Tony Sipp:

It moving. Can you share a memorable case that you had that had a significant impact on you or your approach to arbitration?

Nikki Mehrpoo:

Luckily, my approach to arbitration is somewhat the same as my approach as a workers’ comp judge. I’m there to listen to the parties, make sure that all the relevant facts and the medical evidence that’s necessary to prove the disability are presented. The concept of we learned something in law school called totality of the circumstances. Well, in workers’ comp, not only do you have to consider the totality of the circumstances, but you need to make sure you have all the proper medical evidence to prove what you are trying to get benefits for your disability. And a lot of times as a judge or an arbitrator, it’s our role to make sure that the record is complete before we make a decision. I say that because I’ve had nuns testify in front of me. I’ve had priests testify in front of me. I’ve had all kinds of religious people testify in front of me. And it’s interesting because you try to go, okay, well, again, that concept of bias, you go in thinking you’re going to hear this and that, and then you go, wait a minute, there’s a lying nun in front of me that’s quite interesting, or a forgetful nun, let’s just say.

Tony Sipp:

Okay.

Nikki Mehrpoo:

Okay. Yeah. So you come across cases that you go, wow. Again, that concept of listening without having other sound in your head is so important.

Tony Sipp:

That’s a very good point. I like that. And I like how you’re taking a listening tour, if you will, and taking it all in and finding that balance. So it’s tough job, definitely a tough job.

Nikki Mehrpoo:

It’s a tough job. But I think overall, it’s not that I’m preaching this concept. The concept to me is if we listened without bias in all aspects of our lives in the Courtroom at the office in our community, you would start to see that once you open yourself up to that open saying, let me go in to hear this person without prejudging what they’re going to say or how they’re going to say it, it changes things and it makes things a lot easier to comprehend and be able to take in.

Tony Sipp:

Well said, well said. Let’s take a quick commercial break from our sponsors and we will be right back and welcome back to the Paralegal Voice podcast. This is Tony Sipp, and we’re back with our guest Nikki Mehrpoo, and we were just discussing some workers’ comp issues and dispute resolution issues. So Nikki, what trends are you seeing in the types of cases coming to resolutions recently? As of recent,

Nikki Mehrpoo:

You really have to be aware of unions and the fact that carve outs are basically cases that are coming from union members. Doesn’t have to be a union member, but when you see the California Teachers Association, the California State Employees Association, the Nurses Association, many of those are involved in arbitrating cases in workers’ comp versus going the traditional system and going through the administrative court and going through the workers’ compensation judge when it comes to work injuries. Right now, remember, our whole world has changed as to where our workplace is. So covid has caused a total change in dynamic of what’s called arising out of employment. And during the course of employment, A-O-E-C-O-E, the injury has to be, well, if you and I are working from home and fall over and injure ourselves over our own dog, but we’re doing work hours, does that mean that’s a work injury?

And guess what? It very well could be a work injury, even if it’s not something that is caused by the employer. Why? Because there’s no causation in workers’ compensation. You just have to prove you got injured during the course of your employment and arising out of your employment. So right now, all of us are at home and all the hazards that are happening at home, if we’re working from home, there’s going to be different injuries that we weren’t used to when we were working in our cubicles or our offices in the past. So what we’re seeing is the actual injury component has changed, especially since covid and employers have to be aware. And a lot of employers are not aware of the fact that their policy that they’re signing with their employees, what equipment are they providing? What safety are they providing? Even though they’re not on your premises, if they’re working for you in their own home, injuries can be still arising out of employment during the course of employment. You are seeing cases that you never saw before because before it was within the confines of the building of your employer, and now it can be people are sitting in their backyard working and getting injured.

Tony Sipp:

Good point. Good point. It’s more complex.

Nikki Mehrpoo:

No, it’s changed in regards to the legal world. Covid changed so much and anyone who had closed their eyes to the technology to going paperless, not going completely without paper paperless, and I teach this in my legal technology class where I say, as lawyers, you can’t go without paper. You’re going to need it. But those firms that weren’t ready for the concept of the 21st century could not adapt quickly to how we had to quickly adapt to this new world of post covid legal technology. And the firms that I consult with and the firms that I work with, I see that the ones who actually opened their eyes and allowed us to come in and show, look, PDF does this and case management does that, and any of the law firms that were open to it before had a lot easier path of adapting to how we are doing it now. And I’m sure you see it yourself as you manage so many people, you see that it’s completely different than it was in the world before.

Tony Sipp:

Yeah, I think it’s actually better we’re able to prove that we could work from home and not the office and be successful at it. So making that leap, there were a lot of firms that just went out of business or got acquired simply because they weren’t ready. And to my point, just a side note, all of you paralegals out there are aspiring paralegals, get your technology now. Start working on getting those degrees and certificates because that’s the future. I mean, we’re talking about it right now and that’s what’s going to happen in the cases. It sounds like they’re getting more complex too.

Nikki Mehrpoo:

And Tony, for all of our listeners, I need to make sure that I repeat what I do in all of my classes, which is it’s not what, it’s who you know and what skills you have improving yourself. A lot of people think, oh, I have to know the law inside and out backwards and forwards, and then I’ll be the best paralegal or I’ll be the best attorney. We live in a world where AI is taking over, okay? And in this new world, again, look at, in less than 10 years, covid happened, AI has happened, and those of us who are not on board with those technology issues are going to have long-term negative effects because not only were they not ready for it, but they’re not ready to advance, they’re not ready to progress, they’re not ready to catch up with what’s happening. So again, we need to realize as students, as lawyers, as paralegals, network, network, network, skills, skills, skills. If you work on those two things from day one of being a student or day one of being a paralegal or day one of being an attorney, then all of what you’re going to be capturing in your networking and your skills is going to allow you to apply your expertise.

Tony Sipp:

I’m applauding you right now. None of you can see that, but I’m clapping my hands because I preach that all the time as well. It’s important. It’s absolutely important. It’s critical. I would add to that, to your point though, things are evolving, things are changing. How do you as a resolution or how do you stay abreast of the new laws and keep yourself updated on what’s going on? I mean, because as you said, it’s happening quickly.

Nikki Mehrpoo:

One, I’ve been a geeky nerd from as long as I can, and I’m a self-proclaimed geeky nerd, and I love being a geeky nerd. I’m one of those people who reads the legal journals that the A BA or the Los Angeles County Bar or the San Francisco Bar publishes. I love that there are a lot of organizations within our realm of whatever area of law we’re practicing, have daily newsletters and have daily information. And I find a lot of people poo poh that email as junk. And if you are in an industry and you are not utilizing the newsletters and the information that professionals put together for you to understand and how to be updated in your area of law, and I’m not saying that that’s the end all, be all, that’s just the beginning, but in order for you to be up to date, to be current, not only do you have to be able to look at the legal, the substantive, but you always have to remember the procedural and in the law, we’ve learned about substantive law, but we need to remember that if we don’t learn the technology about the procedure, then you can’t do any of it.

I worked at a law firm, and this is how far back I’ve worked for a law firm where the main partner didn’t know how to check his own voicemail. This is years ago. Okay. Voicemail was new technology for him and he liked it, still getting his messages on written format, and he never checked emails. She never knew how to open A PDF or what A PDF was, or when you say when we need to make sure we OCR, everything, these things, they were oblivious to it. And those are terms in our day-to-day life that if you don’t know what an OCR is or an exact image is or 100% on point is, then we’ve got issues that can’t be solved with just the podcast, unfortunately.

Tony Sipp:

Fair enough, fair enough. With that, let’s take a quick commercial break from our sponsors and we’ll be right back and welcome back to the Paralegal Voice podcast. I’m Tony Sipp here with Nikki Mehrpoo. Nikki, what advice would you give someone considering a career in dispute resolution?

Nikki Mehrpoo:

I’m going to make it a little broader than that in regards to, I think this is the advice I would give to anybody, any profession which is invest in yourself.

Tony Sipp:

Amen. Amen.

Nikki Mehrpoo:

I always tell my students, look at the job posting. Any job posting your dream job posting. Look at the skills listed, look at the information listed. Invest in yourself saying, I want to get to that dream job. I need to work on these skills because these are my skills that are lacking additional classes that are necessary that I need to take. It’s investing in yourself. A lot of people say, well, what do you mean? Well, putting a target outfit together with a really nice button down shirt and nice pair of slacks is investing in yourself to be properly dressed, even for a zoom interview, investing in yourself. And that does not mean a lot of money. That means your time, that means your resume is constantly updated. That means you’re there to get involved with the changes that are taking place in your law firm, in your government, in your place of employment, regardless of what you’re doing.

Conflict in anyone who wants to get into the legal world or conflict resolution or workers’ compensation. I would say something I didn’t do, but I would highly recommend because it would’ve been very helpful to me. Find a mentor, find someone. You look up to, someone who has your ethics, your values. They don’t even have to be exactly in the same type of job or anything like that, but brainstorm with others. The concept of us doing things alone because we’re working from home needs to be taken out of our system and we need to concentrate on the fact that don’t reinvent the wheel, get a mentor, ask questions and get on a zoom call with anybody and everybody and say, this is where my problem is, and how can we brainstorm about this? If more people, when the bleep hit the fan, when they hit the fan, they need to go, wait a minute.

I need to get help. And instead of saying, I’m going to get on a Zoom call with my supervisor, I’m going to get a Zoom call with my colleagues. I’m going to get this straightened out just to brainstorm it, just to think outside of the box to see how maybe there’s another solution. Again, we go back to that concept of skills and being able to invest in yourself. And I know I sound like a broken record, but being a professor for over 26 years and having students that are still in my life from 26 years ago and who I’ve tried to help out, they come back and say, you know what? When you said dah, dah, dah, dah, it really helped. And the one thing that has been most helpful is reminding them, investing in yourself and making sure that regardless of the career, whether you’re going to be an arbitrator, a judge, an attorney, a paralegal, whatever, you need to look to the future of your industry and see how you can be prepared for that future. And that’s something that I’ve always thought about when websites were not a big deal when email was not a big deal, newsletters, all those things were not a big deal back in 2000. I was on it back then. Again, A lot of people hear about chat, GPT and ai, and they want to turn their backs to it and say, it’s not part of my life. I don’t need to worry about it. But they’re also not realizing what they’re missing and how it can help them advance in their career.

Tony Sipp:

And they’re probably already using it. If they have a smartphone, you’re already using it. So it’s already built into our system. So it’s just keeping yourself ahead of that. If you haven’t covered it, I think you were saying invest in yourself and make sure you update your skills and do that. I mean, I think that’s a great way of looking at it, the networking as well. Of course.

Nikki Mehrpoo:

Think about it in this way. As someone who hires paralegals, as someone who supervises paralegals, I am sure that you would prefer someone with common sense and skills over someone with all the education in the world, but doesn’t have skills and common sense.

Tony Sipp:

You know me Well,

Nikki Mehrpoo:

And that’s the thing. When we’re teaching our future, when we’re teaching our students, we need to say it’s not just about the subject matter. You have to be able to be thrown in a very, being an attorney, being a paralegal, being in the legal world is not easy. You lose a lot of sleep. You wake up in the middle of the night thinking about your cases, you worry about things. And as such, you need to be prepared in your own head to say, okay, I can brainstorm how to figure something out even if I don’t know how to do it. And that common sense doesn’t exist with a lot of people. Some people just freeze and it doesn’t go anywhere from there.

Tony Sipp:

It’s funny you say that because just this morning we have a group chat for the Los Angeles Paralegal Associations, and one of the participants had a question. They threw it out to 13 people, and probably six people responded, giving them a solution to that. They were brainstorming, trying to figure out something, and they got their answer and it was like, thank you. That’s our tribe. And we were able to get something resolved. But it’s really important to have that mentor in your life. Christine Castio Sous always says, have a mentor for where you want to be, where you are now and help the person in the past to help get up there. So I believe in that concept. I really think it’s a great thing to do.

Nikki Mehrpoo:

And on that note, I want to just say one thing. If anyone hears this podcast and is interested in finding a mentor or needing help in finding a mentor, one, I would love to mentor anyone who’s interested in the workers’ comp or immigration arena, the future needs guidance. I believe so. You can find me on LinkedIn, on Nikki Mehrpoo and I-K-K-I-M-E-H-R-P-O-O. You can always find me on LinkedIn. You can always Google me, and I would be more than happy to if I can’t help you, put you in touch with someone who can help you in regards to mentorship and guiding your hopefully investment in yourself.

Tony Sipp:

Well said. Well said. Thank you for that, Nikki. This has been a great conversation and I have to reiterate what she said and be careful what you asked for because on the website, we’ll have her contact information on there. And I think there’s a few other websites that she wants to share with people as well. So check in the description below and it will have that information. This has been a great conversation by the way, and I’m sure people are going to re-listen to this several times because it was that informative. Is there anything that you would like to tell our listeners before you go? Words of encouragement, wisdom or definitely invest in yourself in skills. Is there something that you want to close out with

Nikki Mehrpoo:

As a recovering type a personality, type a person, and I call myself that really,

Tony Sipp:

I don’t think you’re recovering.

Nikki Mehrpoo:

I don’t think I’m recovering.

Tony Sipp:

I think you still are. I think he still are, but

Nikki Mehrpoo:

A lot more than before. I’ll say this. Prior to Covid, I never stopped and realized, wait a minute, when Covid happened, everyone is down to 15 miles per hour, and I was still at 155 miles per hour. So true. And then Covid happened, and then I realized, okay, I can’t be at 155 because there’s no one to do 155 with. So I came down to 85, and I think my maximum is going to continue to be at 85 when everyone else is still going at 35. I think 85, 35 is good.

Tony Sipp:

The balance,

Nikki Mehrpoo:

That balance. So again, recovering type a personality, but work life balance. If I could go back these past 30 years, I’m proud to say I graduated from law school 30 years ago, and if I can tell one thing to myself is that there needs to be a better work-life balance, and there needs to be that concept that you stop and you say, I have an hour to myself every day. And within that hour for myself, how did I invest in myself? How did I stop and say, did I do one good thing for my future? Did I do one good thing for my career? And that one good thing you will vouch for this could be doing something good for someone else. That’s true. And because I hope that once this picks up where you realize that you can benefit by doing good for others in their career, because what do you do? You’re investing in yourself. What else are you doing?

Tony Sipp:

Skills.

Nikki Mehrpoo:

Skills. You’re investing in yourself, you’re networking, and you’re growing your skills.

Tony Sipp:

Well said, and a great way to conclude. And with that, thank you for listening to the Paralegal Voice podcast. Thank you for my guests, Nikki Mehrpoo, and till the next time, have a wonderful day.

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