MacDonald Hoague & Bayless has been a leader in civil rights litigation for more than 60 years.

Our firm has been a national leader in civil rights litigation since our founding in 1952. We represented college professors in loyalty oath cases in the 1950s; civil rights workers and conscientious objectors in the 1960s; delegates seeking equal votes in presidential nominating conventions in the 1970s; female athletes seeking equal opportunity in college sports programs in the 1980s; female prisoners challenging body searches by male guards in the 1990s; individuals challenging racial profiling in the 2000s; and women standing up against sexual harassment and unequal pay and working conditions today. Our firm also has a long history of providing excellent representation to underserved client populations, including refugees, victims of police misconduct, inmates on death row, and prisoners challenging unconstitutional prison conditions.

We are dedicated to civil rights in both our personal and professional lives, and count among our attorneys past Presidents of the ACLU of Washington and board members of the ACLU of Washington, the national ACLU, and Legal Voice. We have also served as cooperating attorneys for the ACLU and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.

Some of our recent civil rights victories include:

  • A $15 million jury verdict for the surviving family members of an unarmed man killed by police while he held his young son in his arms
  • A unanimous Washington Supreme Court decision striking down race-based staffing assignments at Western State Hospital
  • An injunction prohibiting the use of single-occupancy restrictions to bar parents with children from living in studio apartments in Seattle
  • A settlement totaling $26 million for two men wrongfully convicted of rape and imprisoned for 17 years before their exoneration through DNA evidence.

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