It was almost inevitable that Lisa Hayes, this year’s recipient of the King County Bar Association’s Outstanding Young Lawyer Award, would become a lawyer. The first time she attended law school, she was only two months old. (Her mother was finishing her last semester of law school and did not know what else to do with her new baby.) Lisa’s father went to law school a decade later and Lisa amused herself in the back of his classrooms, doodling across Prosser on Torts. By the time Lisa was in junior high, she had become so good at finding loopholes in oral agreements that her parents made her sign detailed written contracts governing her groundings and behavior.
Nevertheless, Lisa was a bit wary of pursuing a legal career. Her passion was for building communities and she was not sure a law practice was the right way to do that.
Her attitude toward law changed, however, when she interned at the Attorney General’s Office. While there, she received a phone call from a business owner disputing incorrect sky-high finance charges. Lisa went to battle with the offending company and consoled the despondent woman. The company eventually conceded and the client profusely thanked Lisa, an 18-year-old, for saving her small business. It was in that moment that Lisa fully understood the power of our legal system to change lives for the better.
Lisa has cleared many of the hurdles by which our community gauges “success.” She argued for a new trial in a death-penalty case before the Ninth Circuit only two weeks after being admitted to the bar. Since then, she has represented clients ranging from corporations fighting multimillion-dollar contractual disputes to a church fighting a city’s efforts to preclude it from hosting a temporary homeless encampment.
She has been general counsel to a start-up company and a litigator with a prominent Seattle law firm. She is currently a principal at Rafel Manville PLLC, where she focuses on real estate litigation and constitutional law. Lisa has served as lead counsel in more than a dozen trials and appeals, has successfully argued hundreds of motions and has never lost a jury trial. Following her closing argument in a recent trial, the judge remarked that Lisa “exemplif[ied] the very finest of the legal profession.”
But Lisa’s professional success is only part of why she was chosen to be this year’s outstanding young lawyer. With the full support of her firm, she averages 200 hours of pro bono work per year and devotes an additional 600 hours a year to community service. A nominator remarked, “Through my work with Lisa, I have had to set aside my prejudice that justice is available only to those who can afford it or who can simply outspend their adversaries. There is a fine tradition of public interest law that Lisa is honoring by her example.”
Lisa remains passionate about community engagement. She is general counsel for the Mount Baker Community Club and a 2005 graduate of Leadership Tomorrow. She has coordinated a legal clinic to help the homeless, worked for organizations serving abused and neglected children, worked to protect the right to vote, advocated for our environment and championed women’s rights. She mentors dozens of local students and helps coach moot court teams at her alma mater, the University of Washington. She is a former board member for the KCBA YLD, an annual participant in the KCBF’s Future of the Law Institute, and a six-term member of the WSBA Professionalism Committee.
Her law partner, Duncan Manville, says, “It’s a good thing Lisa doesn’t need much sleep, because she simply does not get it. She puts in longer days — and nights — than most people I know, but she can still find a way to make the office laugh on even the most difficult days.”
Lisa Hayes is a lawyer with a heart — as well as a brain — and a shining example of the practice of law at its best.
Kristen Howell is general counsel for Rainier Funds. She and Lisa met years ago while working at Riddell Williams P.S., where they bonded over highly caffeinated drinks.
