After graduating in 1969 from North Miami Senior High School in Miami, Florida, he was conscripted through the military draft and fought in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam war, earning the rank of Sergeant, and receiving the Bronze Star for meritorious service after his one-year tour. He was honorably discharged in 1970 and attended the Georgetown University Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, graduating in 1975 with a BS in International Law and Politics, and then the Antioch School of Law, graduating in 1978.
He has been an active litigator before the United States Merit Systems Protection Board representing federal employees who have been retaliated against for reporting fraud, abuse of authority, waste and environmental abuses by federal agencies. One of his most notable civil lawsuits was the challenge of the wrongful termination of Shawn Carpenter by Sandia National Laboratory, resulting in a $4.7 million verdict against Sandia. Guyer and his law partner Stephani L. Ayers co-counseled the case with American civil liberties lawyer Philip B. Davis He has had deep ties with the Government Accountability Project for more than two decades. In February 2010, he celebrated the self-sacrifice and contributions of whistleblowers to American legal freedoms over the past four decades with Frank Serpico, Daniel Ellsberg, Coleen Rowley, David Aaron Kessler and others. From 2002 until 2005, he served as GAP's Litigation Director and General Counsel. From 1986-2002 he worked as adjunct private attorney at GAP, representing GAP whistleblowers nationwide and internationally. He has associated on numerous cases Thomas M. Devine, the internationally acknowledged expert in the world-wide whistleblower protection movement, and the moving force behind passage of the federal Whistleblower Protection Act.
Thad M. Guyer and Stephani L. Ayers, "The Dimensions of Sarbanes-Oxley Federal Question Jurisdiction", Practicing Law Institute, 718 PLI/Lit 331.
Thad M. Guyer, Oregon Bar Bulletin, "Email and Horror: The critical need for e-mail redundancy" July 2002.
Thad M. Guyer, "Behind the Technology Curve: Affordable Solutions for Lawyers without Lots of Money", Washington State Bar News, February 2003.
Robert S. Catz & Thad M. Guyer, "Federal in Forma Pauperis Litigation: In Search of Judicial Standards", 31 Rutgers Law Review 655, cited in Case, J., 90 KYLJ 701 Kentucky Law Journal, "Pro Se Litigants at the Summary Judgment Stage".
Thad M. Guyer, Survey of Local Civil Discovery Procedures,, cited in Edward F. Sherman, Tulane Journal of International and Comparative Law, "The Evolution of American Civil Trial Process: Towards Greater Congruence with Continental Practice", Spring 1999; and "Report to the President and the Attorney General", 80 F.R.D. 509 January 22, 1979.
Thad M. Guyer and Debra F. Lee, "The Ethics of Poor Law Firm Management in the Legal Services System", 13 Clearinghouse Rev. 484, cited in "Conceiving a Lawyer's Duty to the Poor", 19 Hofstra Law Review 885 Summer, 1991