Hayley is an attorney with 20+ years of experience. Specialising in sexual harassment, workplace discrimination and chairing disciplinaries and investigations, she further has extensive experience in providing legal guidance and support, evaluating and advising on the fairness of terminations of employment (whether for misconduct, incapacity or as a result of retrenchment processes); and in drafting, reviewing and updating workplace policies, procedures, codes of conduct and employee handbooks.

Hayley has trained CCMA Commissioners, Case Management Officers and Translators in all 11 CCMA offices nationwide regarding the handling of referrals relating to sexual harassment. She has a wealth of experience in providing employment and discrimination law-related training seminars that equip employers and employees with the relevant legal and procedural knowledge, as well as the practical skills required, to strengthen internal capacity and deal appropriately with workplace challenges as they arise.

She has successfully litigated numerous high profile, precedent-setting employment law, discrimination and gender-based violence-related cases in the South African Labour Court, High Court, Supreme Court of Appeal and Constitutional Court (including seminal cases specifically relating to sexual harassment and other forms of gender-based violence); initiated ongoing and potentially precedent-setting cases relating to workplace discrimination on the basis of pregnancy, sex, gender, race and/or disability; as well as resolved sensitive matters through negotiated settlement agreements.

Hayley has also (co)authored and presented numerous law reform submissions to the South African Law Reform Commission and Parliamentary Portfolio Committees, lectured at several universities in South Africa and overseas, contributed to, as well as supervised, academic research projects; and been interviewed repeatedly by national and international media on a variety of discrimination and employment law-related topics.