Melissa draws on a decade of in-house counsel experience to provide practical leadership advice for employers on labor and employment matters, crisis management of all workplace emergencies, and sensitive internal investigations spanning the c-suite, board members, company leaders, and front-line employees.
Melissa brings her corporate knowledge to every client conversation: her background means she readily understands the challenges business executives face and how to best meet their needs. While she works with clients in a wide variety of industries, she has deep experience in the insurance and financial services industries as well as with credit unions, having served as in-house counsel for a company providing products and services within those sectors.
Melissa helps clients avoid and solve problems by providing strategic and preventative labor and employment counsel. Partnering with clients to develop practical strategies, she advises on employee termination and discipline, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and state disability laws, and the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), and she carefully guides employers through difficult issues involving allegations of discrimination and harassment. Melissa understands that in the labor and employment field, emotional intelligence is just as important as legal knowledge. Recognizing the central and deeply personal role work plays in employees’ lives, Melissa is often able to defuse a situation with a proactive, emotionally intelligent response.
While Melissa’s goal is to help clients stay out of court, her substantial experience before state and federal courts and administrative agencies across the country means she is prepared to vigorously defend employer-interests when litigation is necessary.
Melissa also regularly leads major internal employment investigations of all sizes, including those that impact c-suite or board member relationships, as well as high-stakes investigations that require persevering through low probability, high consequence events and threaten business continuity. She often collaborates with Husch Blackwell’s deep bench of white collar attorneys regarding employment-related tactical decisions during white collar criminal investigations. Many of these situations center on highly emotional or publicized issues and require delicate handling, and Melissa has the experience to reduce the impact that these matters can have on the organization as a whole. She has led hundreds of investigations in her career, both in the role of a fact finder and as a legal counselor during the investigative process.
Melissa has also built a niche practice surrounding labor and employment concerns in the midst of crisis management. She counsels clients on both the internal and external communications necessary when sensitive allegations are made, as well as risk mitigation in media relations. She has experience handling matters with industry-wide or national spotlight public relations concerns and is extensively knowledgeable about the labor and employment implications of these situations. Melissa finds great satisfaction in helping companies resolve crises and move forward to make informed, strategic, and productive decisions for the future.