Melissa Lerner
USC Gould School of Law

Melissa Y. Lerner is a senior associate at Lavely & Singer, P.C., where she represents actors, social media stars, musicians, producers and production companies, managers and other high-profile clients on a wide variety of matters.

Lerner has worked on defamation, invasion of privacy and right of publicity cases; profit participation audits; intellectual property infringement claims; corporate, partnership and employment matters; real estate and homeowners association litigation; tortious interference claims; and assault and battery cases, including restraining order proceedings. She has participated in mediations and arbitrations, litigated in state and federal court in California, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Oklahoma and New York and drafted demand letters, summary judgment motions and appellate briefs, among other materials.

Prior to joining Lavely & Singer, Lerner worked at Kirkland & Ellis, LLP as an associate in the intellectual property litigation department, and then at Foley & Lardner, LLP, where she broadened her practice to include pharmaceutical class action defense, antitrust law and white collar criminal defense and investigations.

Lerner, a Los Angeles native, earned her bachelor’s degree from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public Policy and International Affairs, with a minor in Near Eastern Studies, and her JD from Columbia Law School. She is admitted to practice law in the State of California.  

FACULTY IN THE NEWS

Bloomberg Government
June 22, 2022
Re: Franita Tolson

Franita Tolson was interviewed about how federal lawsuits from North Carolina, Alabama, and Arkansas test the limits of the Voting Rights Act, the boundaries of state government authority, and the ability of voting rights groups to file racial gerrymandering cases. “These doctrines and approaches in these cases fundamentally reset the rules of the game,” she said. “In 2030 we will live in a completely different world than we lived in in 2020, and 2020 was not favorable to minority voters at all.”

RECENT SCHOLARSHIP

Robin Craig
March, 2022

"Saltwater Sovereignty: Tribal Marine Management Authority Along the Pacific Coast.” Online Environmental Law Workshop. University of Maryland School of Law, Baltimore, MD.

Daniel Klerman
March, 2022

“Comment on Choi, Erickson, & Pritchard, ‘Coalitions among Plaintiffs’ Attorneys in Securities Class Actions’,” Conference on Empirical Legal Studies, Virtual, Toronto, ON, Canada.

Robin Craig
March, 2022

“Who’s on First? The Mind-Blowing Attempt to Conceptualize Deference in the Midst of Decision Delays and Agency Repeals,” J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Environmental Law Symposium for the George Washington University School of Law, Virtual, Washington, D.C.