Paul Friener - Austin, TX

Paul Friener is the Managing Partner of Tully Rinckey PLLC’s Austin, TX, office, where he focuses his practice on labor and employment law. Prior to joining Tully Rinckey, Paul was a supervising attorney at Legal Aid of NorthWest Texas, where he supervised the Legal Aid for Survivors of Sexual Assault (LASSA) division and was a team leader for the Immigration Practice team.

As a practicing attorney with legal aid, Paul holistically assisted his clients with general civil legal services that consisted of administrative appeals for wrongful employment terminations, appeals for denial of Texas Unemployment Benefits Compensation, including Federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, appeals for denial of Social Security Disability benefits, serving as a first chair trial attorney in divorces, custody disputes, and protective orders, filing for humanitarian immigration visas, eviction defense, and being certified to handle guardianship cases by the State Bar of Texas. Paul also served as a Vice Chair and bargaining member for his union bargaining team with the National Organization of Legal Services Workers (NOLSW) and United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 2320.

No matter the case, Paul is passionate about standing up for the rights of his clients who have faced injustice. Whether it is in the courtroom or in mediation, Paul has dedicated his career to providing high-quality legal representation and strategic litigation.

Prior to his work with legal aid, Paul worked in private practice, handling family-based immigration cases and Texas workers’ compensation cases. He was also a solo practitioner as a criminal defense attorney.

Paul has been selected to speak at Texas legal conferences and provide legal advocate training to DFW area homeless shelters, social service agencies, and local law enforcement. He has been a presenter at the State Bar of Texas’ Poverty Law Conference in Austin, Texas, on immigration law, and also helped plan a 2-day legal advocate conference in 2023 in Dallas, Texas, where he spoke about legal rights for survivors of human trafficking.

Paul graduated from the Thomas M. Cooley Law School in Lansing, Michigan, Magna Cum Laude, where he held the prestigious position of Editor-in-Chief of the Thomas M. Cooley Law Review. He also helped in publishing a judge’s bench book, entitled A Michigan Guide to Military Family Law, to assist judges with family law as it relates to active service members. While in law school, Paul scored the highest marks in Business Organizations, Secured Transactions, Criminal Procedure, Research and Writing, and Advanced Domestic Mediation. Paul was also inducted into the National Order of Scribes in 2013 for exceptional legal writing.

When Paul is outside the office, he spends his time camping at state parks in Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas and is an endurance athlete in the sports of cycling and triathlon.