Melissa is an experienced advocate practising in commercial litigation, equity and administrative law. She has appeared in a wide range of jurisdictions from the High Court to the Local Court and various tribunals including the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.
Her commercial practice is diverse and includes contract disputes; competition and consumer law matters; corporations law matters and insurance disputes. She has experience defending directors and officers of corporations against breach of duty and negligence claims (notably appearing in ASIC v Vines).
Melissa not only appears for, and advises, large and small corporations, she has extensive experience acting for Commonwealth and State government agencies and Local Government Councils. Melissa also appears regularly at Commissions of Inquiry and the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC).
Melissa is regularly briefed as Counsel in interlocutory hearings and has experience in applying for urgent interlocutory relief.
Before commencing at the bar in 2003, Melissa completed her LLM at the University of Cambridge and gained international experience at KPMG in London where she worked with large commercial clients in the financial services and pharmaceutical industries and start-ups in the bio-tech industry.
Melissa is a member of the Law Advisory Board at the University of Notre Dame, Australia (currently chaired by the President of the Court of Appeal, Justice Beazley). Melissa is also Adjunct Senior Lecturer in the School of Law at the University of Notre Dame.
She is a contributing author to Thomson Reuters’ NSW Civil Practice and Procedure and NSW Civil Procedure Handbook and is often asked to speak on practice and procedure topics. For 6 years she was the Moderator of the NSW Bar Association’s practice and procedure examination and is a member of the Bar Association’s Examination Working Party and a member of the Bar Examination Moderation Panel.