Hawaii Lawyers

Ms. Faria obtained her Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration from the University of Washington with Honors in 1993.  In 1997, she obtained her Juris Doctorate, cum laude, from Seattle University. During her second year in law school, Ms. Faria was a research assistant for Associate Dean/Corporations Professor Eric Chiapinelli. In  her third year, Ms. Faria attended the University of Hawai’i as a visiting student where she acted as a research assistant for Professor John Van Dyke (dec.) and Sherry Broder working on Hawaiian issues.

Ms. Faria is a member of the Hawaii and American Bar Associations and was admitted to practice before the Hawaii State and Federal Courts in 1997. Ms. Faria was a law clerk to the now deceased Honorable John S. W. Lim, Judge of the Hawai”i Intermediate Court of Appeals from 1997 to 1998. Ms. Faria acts as an arbitrator for the First Circuit Court Annexed Arbitration Program on a regular basis.

In 2010, Ms. Faria was awarded the prestigious Top 40 Under 40 Leader Award for up and coming leaders by Pacific Business News.  She is AV rated, the highest such rating available from Martindale Hubbell Peer Review based on the assessment of judges and her colleagues.

Ms. Faria is the managing partner of the law firm of Perkin & Faria.  Perkin & Faria is a boutique litigation law firm, handling a wide range of cases, including class actions and multi-million dollar civil disputes on behalf of individuals, corporations and partnerships. Her practice is diverse, but she maintains a significant interest in civil consumer and employment litigation, and continues to fight for those who are exploited by deceptive and unfair business and employment practices.

Ms. Faria has obtained multi-million dollar recoveries for individuals, companies and class action groups, successfully litigating over thirty Class Action matters.  She has provided legal counsel and volunteered for a number of organizations, including the Hui Malama I Ke Kai Foundation, Polynesian Voyaging Society, Hawaii Sailing Canoe Association, Kai Makana, Hui Nalu, Project Purelight, and New Hope Christian Fellowship’s Children of Incarcerated Parents Ministry.

While Ms. Faria enjoys all aspects of her practice, she gets the most satisfaction out of helping out the little guy, whether that be the employee, consumer, or victim who has been wronged by those in power.  She takes great pleasure in taking back from the rich the ill-gotten gains stolen from those whose voices would otherwise not be heard.  Her efforts have contributed to hundreds of thousands of dollars being contributed to local non-profits who give back to the community, including Counsel of Native Hawaiian Advancement, Legal Aid Society of Hawaii, Family Promise of Hawaii, Consumer Credit Counseling Service of Hawaii, Goodwill Industries of Hawaii, Hawaii Home Ownership Center, Aloha United Way, Junior Achievement of Hawaii, The Mediation Promise of the Pacific, YWCA of Hawaii, and Parents and Children Together.

Mark Leemon has over 30 years of trial experience, starting with an extensive ten year criminal defense practice as a staff attorney and supervisor at the Seattle-King County Defender Association. In addition to his own practice there, he helped train numerous other lawyers in trial practice, including several who have become some of Seattle’s best criminal lawyers.

Since leaving the Defender Association, Mark has had a widely varied practice on behalf of victims of personal injuries. He has had extensive involvement in the representation of victims of violent crime and was lead trial and appellate counsel in Taggart v. State, the Washington Supreme Court case that established the right of crime victims to sue the state for harm caused by negligent parole and probation supervision. He has before and since successfully prosecuted numerous negligent supervision cases, including Van Wijk v. State, a case brought on behalf of a woman who was stalked and shot by a former boyfriend on community supervision that settled after a week of trial for $1.9 million.

Mark is a recognized resource for issues relating to government liability and has regularly been invited to present continuing legal education programs on this and other subjects. He has appeared on numerous television and radio broadcasts, including the CBS national news program 60 Minutes II.

Mr. Leemon has significant experience in litigation on behalf of clients abused and/or neglected in foster homes, boarding homes and other residential care facilities. Among his achievements in this field is a $1 million settlement in a case against Washington’s DSHS and a nursing home on behalf of a developmentally disabled woman who was sexually assaulted in the home by another resident.

Since going into practice with his wife and current law partner Sidney Royer, Mr. Leemon has increased his involvement in medical malpractice and nursing home litigation, achieving successful results in cases involving negligent diagnosis and treatment and significant birth injuries.

Mark Leemon’s career as a civil trial lawyer is notable both for the broad variety of cases he has handled and the degree of success he has achieved on behalf of his clients.

Sidney Royer started out as a social worker, and worked for several years in that capacity in a number of different hospitals. Her familiarity with hospital administration and medical procedures made her particularly well qualified to deal with the intricacies of medical and psychiatric malpractice cases when she turned to the law in 1983. Since then, she has helped scores of clients, not only those injured through medical neglect or abuse, but also victims of violent crime, and people who have been seriously injured in a variety of circumstances. In each of these cases, her background has allowed to better understand the trauma faced by those who have been seriously injured, and to forcefully advocate on their behalf.

Seattle attorney Michael T. Pfau has practiced law for more than 25 years.  He has tried over 50 cases to juries, the bench, and arbitration panels.  Michael has obtained multiple verdicts in excess of $1 million, and he has recovered tens of millions of dollars in settlements for his clients.  In 2012, he obtained an $8 million jury verdict against a Catholic religious order, believed to be one of the largest of its kind.

Michael attended Boston College, graduated magna cum laude, and earned a number of other academic honors.  After Boston College, Michael attended Michigan law school and graduated in 1991.  He has been named a perpetual “Super Lawyer” by Law and Politics magazine, receiving that honorable distinction every year since 2003.  He is peer rated AV Preeminent.

Michael has dedicated a large part of his practice to representing victims of childhood sexual abuse against sexual predators and the institutions that employ and protect them.  Michael has had tremendous success prosecuting claims of child sexual abuse in a number of different states and jurisdictions.  In this endeavor, Michael has been lead counsel for hundreds of victims of sexual abuse and has recovered in excess of $200 million for his clients over the past 15 years in lawsuits against the Catholic church, the Mormon church, the Boy Scouts of America, and other institutions responsible for child sex abuse.

Michael has been involved in a number of the nation’s large Catholic bankruptcy settlements, including the Dioceses of Spokane and Milwaukee and those involving the Jesuit order and the Irish Christian Brothers.

Michael was also recently involved in a lawsuit on behalf of three minor girls who were sold for sex on the website Backpage.com, which was the largest online source of sex trafficking in the United States.  His clients obtained a landmark victory in the Washington State Supreme Court over whether federal immunity barred the case.  He now represents clients with claims against Backpage.com in Washington, California, Texas, Hawaii, Illinois, and Hawaii.