Meredith Sawyer - Senior Attorney

Meredith A. Sawyer

Senior Counsel

Ms. Sawyer joined HWS as a senior attorney in 2020 and has over twenty years of civil litigation experience. Her practice currently focuses on civil litigation in the areas of personal injury, property damage and real estate disputes, including boundary line, trespass, premises liability and homeowners’ association litigation. She also has experience handling subrogation matters involving fires.

Ms. Sawyer’s secondary practice area focuses real estate transactions and related litigation, in both residential and commercial settings.  She has experience representing owners, buyers, sellers, and small developers negotiating and drafting purchase and sale agreements, easement and license agreements, construction contracts, and leases.  She has also represented real estate brokers and agencies in professional liability disputes and ethics claims.

Over the course of her career, Ms. Sawyer has worked in both large and small firm settings, first in San Francisco and later in Seattle.  Her background as both a litigator and as a transactional lawyer have given her a unique perspective in recognizing the strengths, weakness and potential challenges of any legal matter.  By both temperament and training, Ms. Sawyer is a problem solver and her approach to the practice of law is collaborative.  She strives to learn about each client’s particular business, interests, and goals and to use that knowledge to provide pragmatic and strategic advice so that her clients can make informed decisions in whatever situation they are facing.   Ms. Sawyer has successfully resolved hundreds of cases through summary judgment dismissal, settlement, mediation, arbitration and trial.  She has experience handling appeals in all divisions of the Washington State Courts of Appeal.

Ms. Sawyer believes in improving access to the legal system for persons of limited means.   Early on her career she worked for the University of Washington School of Law and was instrumental in developing and implementing the first incarnation of its Center for Public Interest Law. She currently volunteers her time as a facilitative mediator with the Dispute Resolution Center of Kitsap County, helping parties resolve a variety of disputes involving parenting plans, landlord- tenant claims and small business disputes.

Professional Associations

Representative Work

Property Disputes

Personal Injury

Real Estate/Transactional

Personal

In her free time, Meredith is an avid (perhaps fanatical…) gardener and her happy place is digging in the dirt and moving plants around in an ongoing (yet elusive) effort to achieve design perfection.  She loves sailing and traveling with her husband and enjoys all things outdoors: hiking, biking, and kayaking. She has three mostly grown (and amazing) daughters with whom she tries to keep up.

Community Involvement

SEATTLE

206.262.1200

1500 Fourth Avenue, Suite 200

Seattle, WA 98101

Linkedin

PORTLAND

503.542.1200

101 SW Main Street, Suite 1605

Portland, OR 97204

Linkedin