Practice Areas
Business Law
Contracts, business relationships, sales agreements, marketing, competition, consumer ratings, etc. A business owner must carefully protect their interests to maintain a profitable business. Don't let a business dispute harm your reputation and profits. Protect your rights by contacting an attorney.
Employment Law
No one should be forced to face discrimination and other illegal conduct while in the workplace. We focus on cases involving discrimination, sexual harassment, retaliation, and other employment-related issues like licensing investigation, Medical board inquiries, EEOC cases, EEO procedures, and unemployment issues.
Civil Rights
Civil Rights
Generations of people have fought and died for your rights. If your rights have been disregarded by the government, let us help make you whole.
before you contact us
What do you need to file a lawsuit?
This section is not intended to replace an attorney consult. The following information is intended to be informational and generalized. Free case assessments are used to offer some guidance and feedback to your circumstances. You will not received lengthy legal advice in a short conversation. Hayward Law will offer a high level assessment of your case and consider if we have capacity to take your case. Of course, you can always pay for an investigation or full assessment of your case, but that is more involved.
General Business Intake
Please fill out an intake and be prepared to talk about the parties involved, the injuries and damages, and the expected outcomes and expectations.
Employment and civil rights casesS
Before you contact the office, consider these four points to help guide our discussion.
1. An employer can legally fire you for any reason or no reason unless there are protections under the law. This is called "at-will" employment. Neither side must remain in the employment arrangement if there is no employment contract or a union. In other words, your employment may end at any moment. An employer failing to follow its employment policies is not, on its face, discrimination. Many employees are fired for reasons that don't make sense and are subject to knee-jerk reactions. Employers get to pick winners and losers unless the reasoning is unlawful. An example of an illegal termination is one based on discrimination (sex, gender, disability, pregnancy, military status, race, religion, etc.), retaliation, or whistleblowing.
2. Lawsuits are based on establishing liability and damages. First, you must prove your employer is liable for discriminatory conduct and then prove you lost something. In most employment cases, damages are primarily the loss of wages. For this reason, if you were fired today, it's hard to value your case because we don't know how long you will be out of a job. If you are out of work for a year, that could be a sizable lawsuit. If you get a new job within a month, your case will be minimal, and you may want to move on. Emotional damages are available, but they are usually connected to the loss of wages unless the emotional damages are very severe.
3. Knowing what you want out of the case is very helpful for the Attorney. It is not likely you will get someone fired or get an apology letter. Money is the most straightforward award available in a lawsuit. You might be able to get some accountability and policy change, but courts are hesitant to tell businesses how to run themselves.
4. If you still have your job and haven't been fired, you likely are worried about losing your job. These situations are not usually lawsuits because there is no no job separation (i.e., it's not a wrongful termination). However, you can still hire an attorney to help manage your employment issues by encouraging your employer to follow the law.
See below to submit an intake.
