Global Legal Experience

Prior to launching Princeton Dispute Resolution, Melanie served as Managing Director and Assistant General Counsel of Fitch Ratings, one of the three major global credit rating agencies. During her sixteen years at Fitch, Melanie counselled and represented Fitch’s largest credit rating services divisions and its regulatory, compliance, credit policy, operations, finance and IT teams.

Melanie also represented Fitch in examinations and investigations conducted by the US Securities and Exchange Commission and other US and foreign regulatory bodies, in industry trade groups, and in foreign and domestic federal and state litigation, including several Latin American jurisdictions. At varying times, Melanie served as principal legal advisor to Fitch’s business development and credit rating analytic teams for Corporates and Industrials, US Leveraged Finance, Financial Institutions, Infrastructure and Project Finance, US Public Finance, and Commercial Mortgaged Backed Securities.

Melanie started her law career at Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton in New York as an attorney focused on banking, securities and international trade matters. Awarded a Ford Foundation Fellowship in Public International Law, in 1992 Melanie joined the Office of the General Counsel of then-fledgling London-based multilateral European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).

As one of the first Counsel to the EBRD, Melanie structured and negotiated sovereign loan, limited recourse debt and equity investments in Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia, negotiated bilateral and multilateral agreements, advised on treaty and other applicable law, collaborated on syndication, procurement and environmental issues, helped spearhead the EBRD’s technical assistance and law reform efforts, and assisted in developing policies and procedures and delivering training programs.

In 1995, Melanie was recruited into the EBRD’s Banking Division Property and Tourism team to negotiate and close some of the Bank’s earliest commercial property investments, including office, retail and hotel financings in Albania, Poland, Romania and Russia. She also played a key role in structuring and negotiating EBRD equity investments to foster financial institutions in the Baltic states.