If you feel your civil rights have been violated, then it is worth your while to speak with a civil rights attorney. There are a number of ways you can face a civil rights issue, and speaking with an attorney is likely to be the only way to truly determine whether you have a viable case.
You can have your civil rights violated in a number of ways, but the violation against you usually has to have something to do with your race, sex or sexual orientation. These are the typical categories in which most civil rights violations occur.
Discrimination in employment is one of the most common civil rights issue. If you feel you were fired, passed over for a promotion, given different duties or paid less because of your sex, your religion or your sexual orientation, then you could potentially be a victim of a civil rights violation for which you might need a civil rights attorney.
Another common lawsuit filed by civil rights lawyers has to do with police misconduct. This can take many forms. For example, you might believe you were wrongly arrested and jailed. Or you might feel that police officers used excessive force against you. In either case, you would want to talk to an attorney who focuses on civil rights issues.
Civil rights violations also could occur at school. If you are harassed by teachers or administrators because of you race or religion, or if you are wrongly accused of a crime or academic dishonesty because of your race or some other reason, you could be the victim of a civil rights violation.
If you do believe you have had your civil rights violated and you decide to hire an attorney, the lawyer will want to ask you many questions about your ordeal to determine whether you may have a case, so you have to be prepared to relive what happened to you. If your attorney does determine that you have a case, he or she likely will file a lawsuit. In the best-case scenario, the person or institution may choose to settle and give in to some or all of your demands to avoid negative publicity. In other cases, you may have to go to trial, where you likely will have to testify in front of a judge.
