WHO WE ARE

Melissa is a business and intellectual property attorney with decades of experience helping companies structure, grow, and adapt, from early-stage ventures to established enterprises. Her practice has spanned corporate formation and governance, commercial agreements, branding, and technology commercialization, always with a focus on how legal decisions play out inside real organizations.

She began her career in private practice at leading Portland firms, then moved in-house in the technology sector, where she developed the practical, business-oriented approach that defines her work today. She is a graduate of Northwestern School of Law of Lewis & Clark College and is licensed to practice law in Oregon and California.

But what shapes Melissa's practice most isn't her resume, it's her life.

Melissa's focus on special-needs families and neurodivergent clients comes from lived experience. When her son was diagnosed with a brain tumor as a young child, it reshaped how she understands advocacy, systems, and what it means to truly support a family navigating complexity. That journey also led her to found Real Food for Real People, a nonprofit supporting people with feeding tubes — a mission she pursued until the organization achieved its goals and closed.

Her family navigates the world with ADHD, dyslexia, and dysgraphia, and that experience informs everything about how she shows up for clients.

That lived experience informs everything about how Melissa works. She's a straight-shooter – clear, direct, and genuinely invested in making sure you understand what's happening and why. She tailors how she communicates to what actually works for the person across from her, whether that means more conversation and less reading, or more time to process. She follows your lead.