Melissa Price is an experienced litigator and former federal prosecutor having completed more than 25 trials and appellate arguments. Most recently, she worked at the United States Embassy in Mexico City where she held senior positions with the Department of State and the Department of Justice. She advised Mexican justice institutions on high-impact criminal investigations, institutional strategy, and capacity building. She has a deep understanding of the U.S. and Mexican legal systems.
During her tenure at the Embassy, she served as a subject matter expert on criminal investigations and analysis for the Department of State Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement (INL). There she designed and implemented programs to improve the capacity of Mexican criminal investigators and analysts and liaised with high-level government counterparts. Prior to joining INL, Ms. Price served in the Department of Justice Attache’s office as the lead for the U.S.-Mexico Firearms Trafficking Initiative, where she advised DOJ and Mexico on binational firearms trafficking cases. Ms. Price was also a resident legal advisor at the embassy for the Office of Overseas Prosecutorial Development Assistance and Training where she developed specialized curriculum in litigation skills and firearms trafficking and trained more than 750 state and federal prosecutors, investigators, and judges.
Ms. Price was an assistant U.S. attorney in the District of Columbia where she investigated and prosecuted narcotics, firearms, homicide, domestic violence, sex offense, arson, and violent crime cases. In 2018, she received a Special Achievement Award for exceptional service.
Prior to becoming a prosecutor, Ms. Price honed her litigation skills at the law firms of O’Melveny and Myers, LLP, in San Francisco and Washington, DC, and Lewis Baach Kaufmann Middlemiss in Washington D.C., focusing on complex financial litigation, white collar defense, and cross-border disputes.
Ms. Price received her law degree from Berkeley Law in 2009, where she was a senior editor of the Berkeley Journal of International Law and a member of the Berkeley Law Trial Advocacy Team. She is a fluent Spanish speaker and has lived and worked in Mexico City for the past seven years. Ms. Price has also lived in Chile and Venezuela.
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Outside of work, Melissa can be found on stage in theater rehearsals with her family.
