For more than twenty years, Melissa has advised corporate and individual clients on a wide variety of issues. She also has had considerable success litigating, arbitrating, and mediating business disputes in various types of alternative dispute resolution proceedings, before administrative agencies, as well as in traditional litigation in state and federal courts. In her administrative law practice, Melissa has represented clients in licensing matters and land use matters in numerous Rhode Island municipalities and before the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management and the Coastal Resources Management Commission. Melissa regularly appears before the public utility commissions in Rhode Island and several other states to represent her clients’ positions in utility rate cases.

In 2023, Melissa was named a Rhode Island Lawyers Weekly Lawyer of the Year. Melissa also has been recognized as a Rhode Island Super Lawyer (Litigation) and received the Rhode Island Monthly Professional Excellence Law Award. Melissa is a recipient of the Martindale-Hubbell AV Preeminent Peer Review Rating.

Melissa is a regular participant in Goldman Sachs’ 10,000 Small Businesses legal clinics and taught business law at Providence College. She is a member of the Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Michigan Bar Associations. She serves as one of two representatives of the public on the RI State Properties Committee. An avid rower, she is president of of the Board of Directors of East Bay Rowing, Inc.