Christine Mayhew

Christine was born and raised in South Carolina, part of large Italian family who had ventured to the United States decades earlier, settled down, and opened a grocery store in hopes of finding prosperity and opportunity. Her mother taught school for twenty years before starting her own business, and her father began his career working in a factory and retired from the same company 42 years later. Christine learned tenacity, commitment, innovation and resiliency from an early age, going on to complete a four-year college degree in only three years-time, graduating with the highest academic achievement in her class of over 1600 students, and then enrolling in law school and finishing with honors.

This spirit of hard work, determination, and initiative are now evidenced in Christine’s law practice. She prides herself on her ability and willingness to provide personalized, boutique services to each of her clients, meeting them where they are and addressing their individual needs. This allows her to creatively work through problems, proposing options and working to get the best outcome in every situation.

Christine has been practicing law for over twenty-five years, focusing on employment law and general civil litigation. She has experience in handling employment claims under the pillars of federal workplace regulations, including Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), and the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA). Christine also has extensive experience negotiating, resolving and litigating claims under the major North Carolina employment law statutes, including the North Carolina Wage and Hour Act and the North Carolina Retaliatory Employment Discrimination Act (REDA).

In addition to litigating matters in Court, Christine routinely represents clients before the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the North Carolina and United States Departments of Labor. She represents clients in alternative dispute resolution proceedings, in both mediation and arbitration. One of her most rewarding and memorable experiences was participating in an arbitration during the height of COVID, held exclusively over Zoom, with the parties, witness, lawyers and arbitrator appearing in a grid on the screen much like the opening sequence from the Brady Bunch.

In addition, Christine has successfully handled numerous unemployment proceedings and has reviewed hundreds of employment contracts, including employment agreements and severance arrangements, confidentiality agreements, and noncompetition, nonsolicitation, and proprietary information protection agreements. She frequently handles disputes arising under the North Carolina and Federal Trade Secrets Protection Act.

A large percentage of her practice is devoted to representing educators, including college and university personnel and public-school teachers, having represented 500-600 educators across North Carolina. Christine also has extensive experience representing healthcare professionals in contract reviews, negotiations and disputes.

She has been named a North Carolina Super Lawyer every year since 2019 and has been voted by her peers into the North Carolina Legal Elite, Employment Law, every year since 2015.

When Christine is not working, she finds joy spending time with her family. She has also spent many years enjoying live theatre; she performed in many community theatre and high school productions when she was younger and now enjoys theatre from the audience and behind the stage. For the past five years, she has served as an officer in the Longleaf School of the Arts theatre Booster club, where both her children attended high school, spearheading concession sales, selling playbill ads, organizing trips to thespian competitions, and otherwise doing her part to keep the arts in the schools.