About the Firm
Hipes Law LLC is an Alpharetta, Georgia-based employment law and business litigation law firm devoted to the interests of corporate executives, professionals, business owners and their companies in metro Atlanta and beyond.
The firm's attorneys are seasoned practitioners from the nation's top law schools with the skills and experience to understand their clients' business and individual perspectives, and to aggressively represent their interests.
We negotiate, mediate, arbitrate, settle and bring to trial cases involving a wide variety of employment-related and business claims, including:
- Wrongful termination
- Sex, race, age, religion, national origin, pregnancy and disability discrimination
- Sexual harassment
- Hostile work environment
- Retaliation
- Family Medical Leave Act issues
- Breach of contract
- Business torts
- Non-compete and employment contract issues
We also negotiate and draft employment agreements, executive compensation agreements, severance agreements, non-competes and other restrictive covenants. We are experienced trial lawyers who fight relentlessly for our clients' rights inside and outside of the courtroom.
However, we understand that many clients are looking for alternatives to the costly and protracted litigation process. Our lawyers are also adept at helping clients resolve their disputes more quickly and efficiently through negotiated settlements, arbitration and mediation.
Having seen the excellent results obtainable through the mediation process, and having obtained certification from Harvard Law School’s Negotiation and Leadership Program, as well as certification from Henning Mediation and Arbitration’s programs in mediation and arbitration, attorney Jeanne Bynum Hipes became a mediator, in addition to being an advocate, and is a registered neutral with Georgia’s Office of Dispute Resolution. Jeanne is thus available to conduct both court-ordered and private mediations, as well as arbitration.
It is clear that mediation is one of, if not the, best, least expensive, and fastest ways to resolve a dispute. Just a few of the advantages of mediation include:
- The fact that a relationship may be preserved by mediation
- Less risk
- The time to resolution is much quicker
- The cost is usually much less
Statistics indicate that 70% of court-ordered mediations are successful, while private mediations enjoy a success rate well over 90%. Moreover, while many mediations involve having lawyers for each side, a lawyer for one or both sides is not required to participate in a mediation—if they choose to do so, the parties can participate in the process without lawyers.
Background
After working at NASA Headquarters and a Washington D.C. law firm to put herself through both college and law school, Jeanne graduated from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1984 and commenced law practice in Atlanta. She began her career in the practice of insurance defense litigation, and progressed into complex, commercial litigation, where she has successfully obtained for her clients multiple, multi-million dollar judgments and other significant victories. In 2001, she was recruited by then-client Lockheed Martin Corporation, the world’s largest defense contractor, to serve as its Assistant General Counsel in New York. As Counsel for Lockheed Martin Corporation, she negotiated national and international business contracts and strategic teaming agreements, while concurrently monitoring and participating in national and international litigation. Her corporate experiences ranged from negotiating, drafting and reviewing multiple primary and sub-contracts related to the development, production, and sale of cutting edge technology (including antiterrorism technology), to attempting to thwart predatory business practices and strategizing with top counsel throughout the United States and abroad over appropriate litigation approaches.
Jeanne’s responsibilities involved major risk analysis work and development of litigation avoidance and success strategies in matters where billions of dollars were potentially at stake. In monitoring and participating in litigation throughout the country and abroad, she was responsible for overseeing and guiding both large and small, highly-regarded law firm counsel, as well as costs of litigation, and defining the course of litigation cases involving multiple employment and business issues. Through her work at Lockheed, she experienced the role of being a client, and was able to see firsthand the positive and negative impact a law firm can have on a client--both the company itself and the executives that run it.
Returning to Atlanta in 2003, Jeanne established her own law firm and also became Of Counsel to a well-known national employment law firm, which relied on her rare blend of litigation skills and business experience to produce exceptional service to the firm’s business and individual executive clients. Jeanne now brings her unique blend of skills and experiences to her executive and professional client base as the managing trial lawyer of Hipes Law LLC.
Jeanne’s combined litigation and business world experiences distinctively enable her to understand her clients’ business and individual perspectives and thus purposefully and aggressively represent their dispute resolution interests. Her litigation resume includes trial, appellate, administrative, mediation and arbitration work with trade secrets, employment agreements and discrimination, restrictive covenants (including, e.g., noncompete, nonsolicitation, and nondisclosure agreements), business and technology contracts, business torts, employer and fiduciary duties, securities issues, RICO, insurance, UCC, and other contract and tort issues. Jeanne is a gladiator for her individual executive and business clients, fighting to obtain for her individual executive clients fair severance agreements and employment contracts, and for all clients, tight, legally-enforceable contracts and justice in the litigation and dispute resolution arena.