A Defender Who Has Seen the System From the Inside
Kait Hayden is the criminal defense partner at Morrison & Hughes. She defends Georgians facing some of the most serious charges in the system — drug possession, violent crimes, battery and aggravated assault, gun and weapon offenses, homicide, burglary, serious driving offenses, theft, and forgery and fraud — as well as probation violations and sexual offense cases.
Kait earned a Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Georgia, along with a certificate in interdisciplinary writing, and studied abroad at Oxford. She went on to earn her Juris Doctor from Georgia State University College of Law, where she concentrated on criminal defense and graduated from the Georgia Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers' Bill Daniel Trial Advocacy Program.
Before becoming a partner, Kait served as a public defender in both Henry County and Clayton County, standing in court day after day for people who had nowhere else to turn. Her law-school work was just as committed — she researched the standard of proof for intellectually disabled defendants as a graduate research assistant and interned with the Georgia Capital Defenders, the Georgia Innocence Project, the Georgia Public Defender Standards Council, and Metro Conflict Defenders.
As a former Academic All-American rower at UGA, Kait developed the focus, endurance, and determination that now define her approach to criminal defense. Her firsthand understanding of prosecutorial strategy allows her to identify weaknesses and build strong, effective defenses.