Melissa Mills is a litigation partner in the Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., offices of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, where she is a member of the firm’s national team of trial lawyers known for its success in litigating cutting-edge disputes in technology, intellectual property, and other areas. She is a co-chair of the firm’s complex litigation practice and a member of the board of directors of the Wilson Sonsini Foundation.

Since joining the firm in 2022, Melissa has worked on a broad variety of complex litigation matters. She obtained a complete victory on behalf of a large public technology company sued by its former CEO, who sought over $100 million in damages and was awarded nothing following a contested proceeding wherein the arbitrator rejected every claim. Melissa served as part of the trial team representing Vanessa Bryant in her historic victory on federal civil rights claims against Los Angeles County for sharing photos from the helicopter crash that killed her husband, Kobe Bryant, and their daughter, Gianna. Melissa’s other work at the firm has included favorably resolving, shortly before trial, a multidistrict antitrust case on behalf of a major international corporation; defending a former technology executive against a variety of tort claims; and litigating a complex anti-monopolization action on behalf of an insulin manufacturer.

Prior to joining the firm, Melissa was an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, where she investigated and prosecuted a wide array of sophisticated corruption and national security crimes for over a decade. She led a sweeping criminal investigation into bribery and corruption at the highest levels of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office, and she prosecuted a sophisticated web of racketeering and corruption-related offenses involving local politicians, lobbyists, and developers—all work that resulted in numerous convictions, including of several senior officials. Following a complicated and sensitive cross-border investigation, she also obtained the trial conviction of a high-level international arms dealer for conspiring to transfer and to use anti-aircraft missiles, among other arms-trafficking offenses. Melissa’s many other criminal cases included the capital murder of a Transportation Security Administration officer, domestic and international terrorism, espionage, trade-secret theft, and other serious crimes against the United States.

Before joining the U.S. Attorney’s Office in 2010, Melissa was an associate in the Los Angeles office of Gibson Dunn focused on white collar crime, anti-corruption, and compliance matters. Previously, she was an active-duty officer in the U.S. Marine Corps stationed in Quantico, Camp Pendleton, and Fallujah, Iraq. During her service in the Marine Corps, she prosecuted and defended hundreds of criminal cases, trying numerous jury trials to verdict. Over a seven-month deployment, she traveled throughout Iraq investigating and prosecuting crimes by U.S. servicemembers. In Iraq, she prosecuted the first two U.S. jury trials in a combat theater since the Vietnam War, one of which was interrupted by incoming rocket fire. She completed her military service in 2006 at the rank of Captain.

After graduating from law school, Melissa clerked for the Honorable A.S. Effron of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces. She began her legal career in The Hague, where she served on a team investigating and prosecuting genocide and other war crimes before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

Melissa is a member of the board of directors of Free to Run. She has completed an Ironman triathlon and more than two dozen marathons.