Ryan Hayward represents businesses and individuals in high-stakes litigation, with a focus on complex commercial disputes, intellectual property, and white-collar matters. He has appeared before U.S. District Courts, U.S. Courts of Appeal, California state courts, and in numerous private disputes. His clients have included Google, Meta, Comcast, and Twitter. Ryan successfully defended Sutter Health in a seven-week bench trial, defeating a qui tam action alleging over $500 million in insurance fraud—an outcome recognized as one of the Daily Journal’s Top Verdicts of 2024.

Ryan also has significant experience representing startups in bet-the-company disputes. He draws on his first-hand experience co-founding a Series B-stage technology company prior to his legal career, as well as serving as a product marketing manager—and later in-house counsel—for Google. Ryan is currently representing clients in matters concerning claimed breaches of contract, as well as patents, trade secrets, copyrights, and more.

In his pro bono practice, Ryan has successfully litigated to advance the rights of individuals with disabilities and the LGBT community.  Ryan also currently serves on the board of directors for the AIDS Legal Referral Panel, which provides legal services to those living with HIV/AIDS in the San Francisco Bay Area.  

Ryan earned his law degree from Columbia Law School and a B.S. in Economics from the Wharton School. After law school, Ryan served as a law clerk to Judge Christopher F. Droney of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and Judge John Z. Lee of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

Cases of Note

  • California ex rel. Duncan et al. v. Sutter Health et al.

    We represented Sutter Health in defeating a qui tam action alleging violation of California's Insurance Frauds Prevention Act in a case related to charges for health care services. Following a…

  • Daedalus Prime v. Google

    We are defending Google against a five-patent case brought by Daedalus Prime in the Western District of Texas targeting alleged power-management functionalities in Google’s Tensor system-on-chip products and Axion processors.

  • SVB Financial Trust v. FDIC

    We represent SVB Financial Trust in a lawsuit that seeks the return of deposit funds held by the FDIC in the wake of the Silicon Valley Bank closure.

  • Plaintiff v. Software Startup

    We successfully defended a startup in a trade secret case alleging that it used proprietary information to develop software that would compete with its much larger incumbent rival, fending off…

  • Promptu v. Comcast Cable Communications

    In the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, we successfully defended Comcast against patent infringement and state-law contract and tort claims brought by Promptu targeting Comcast’s voice recognition and control technology. Following…

  • District Council #16 v. Sutter Health et al.

    We represented Sutter Health in class action litigation alleging Unfair Competition Law claims related to charges for anesthesia services. After aggressively litigating the case, we negotiated a favorable settlement on…

  • United States ex rel. Hanvey v. Sutter Health et al.

    We were retained to represent Sutter Health in this qui tam action on the eve of trial. The complaint included allegations under the Anti-Kickback Statute. After fiercely litigating the matter,…

  • AlmondNet v. FreeWheel Media

    We are defending Comcast subsidiaries FreeWheel Media and Beeswax.io against infringement claims based on patents directed to targeted advertising brought by AlmondNet in the District of Delaware.

  • Abdulaziz v. Twitter, Al-Ahmed v. Twitter, and Al-Sadhan v. X Corp.

    We successfully defended Twitter and X Corp. in a series of civil lawsuits in federal courts in San Francisco and New York filed by Saudi Arabian political dissidents and journalists…

News & Events

Publications

Evaluating the “Imminence” of a Cyber Attack for Purposes of Anticipatory Self-Defense, 117 Colum. Law Rev. 399 (2017)