Melissa Colangelo

Melissa Colangelo is the Appellate Director at Children’s Law Center in Washington, DC. Melissa leads the team responsible for designing and implementing long-term, appellate litigation strategies to push the law in directions that will meaningfully improve clients’ lives. She also routinely handles and supervises appeals arising in a variety of family law proceedings and works on all matters where Children’s Law Center serves as amicus curiae. Melissa consults with colleagues on complex trial-level litigation as well, with a focus on issue preservation and development of novel legal theories. In addition, she has created and delivered dozens of trainings, both internally (for colleagues) and externally (for attorneys locally and nationally, as well as D.C. judges), on appellate advocacy best practices and foundational family law doctrines.

Melissa has also been an adjunct professor at The George Washington University Law School for more than a decade. She teaches appellate advocacy skills by coaching students competing in moot court competitions and is an instructor for the Advanced Field Placement co-requisite course.

Prior to joining Children’s Law Center in 2011, Melissa was a litigation associate at Shearman & Sterling LLP and clerked for the Honorable John R. Fisher of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals. Before law school, Melissa taught History to ninth and tenth graders.