Paul Lance Mills is an entertainment litigator, copyright lawyer, civil rights lawyer, and criminal defense lawyer, admitted to practice in New York, California and Massachusetts.

Prior to relocating to New York City in 2006, Mills practiced law in California since his admission in 1995, defending, on First Amendment grounds, political protesters and street artists.  In addition to his criminal defense practice, Mills has also handled state and federal lawsuits arising from violations of international human rights, and U.S. and state constitutional rights, at both trial and appellate level.  These included cases arising out of unlawful police killings, beatings, and false arrests, both as a sole practitioner and in association with some of the country's top civil rights attorneys (Carol Watson, Robert Mann, Tom Beck, Ellen Ellison, James Muller, Danilo Becerra).  Mills was one of three attorneys who filed Mochizuki v. United States, a class action which, following litigation in the Washington, DC, United States Court of Claims, resulted in a multimillion dollar settlement with an apology from U.S. President Bill Clinton to Latin-American Japanese victims of a World War II U.S. conspiracy among the U.S. State and Justice Departments, Army and Navy, to abduct and imprison them for use as international hostage exchange "bargaining chips."  

Mills’ deep and extensive experience advocating human rights issues began in earnest when he graduated from Columbia University in 1990.  Following his move to California in the early 1990s and while still a student at UCLA School of Law, he conducted original criminal appellate research for the San Diego Public Defenders Office.  Mills advised Los Angeles victims of police abuse on bringing claims in the local courts in affiliation with the Police Watch organization whose successor, L.A. Police Watch, he now directs.  He interned with the ACLU of Southern California, clerked for a leading New Mexico criminal defense and civil rights trial attorney, and clerked for a team of Los Angeles civil rights attorneys in a landmark police brutality class action against the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department.

Paul Lance Mills, aka Poez, brings a personal passion to First Amendment and artists' rights cases, having enjoyed a ten-year career as a performance poet (a "spoken-word pioneer" according to the New York Times, and a "voice musician" according to the New York Daily News) which took him from the sidewalks of Harvard Square and Greenwich Village to the night clubs and concert stages of New York and Paris.  He has recently been appearing at such music and off-Broadway venues as The Bowery Poetry Club, The Cornelia Street Cafe, The Sidewalk Cafe, La MaMa E.T.C., Dixon Place, and Theater for the New City, following the publication and release of his collection of prose and spoken word poetry scripts, The Poetry Dollars (Bowery Books, New York, 2007).  Prior to that he worked as an alternative media journalist and occasional film and music critic for Boston's Fusion Magazine, The Boston Phoenix, and Detroit's Creem Magazine; his writing and exploits won praise from The Boston Globe, and coverage from San Francisco's Rolling Stone.  

Following twelve years of law practice in Los Angeles, Mills has returned to residence in New York City's Upper West Side.  He is fluent in Spanish and literate in French, having graduated with a degree in French Literature and the Lily Palmer French Prize from Columbia. 

Paul Lance Mills and Deborah Hrbek frequently collaborate on entertainment litigation, first amendment and general entertainment business matters.