Melissa Lessell partners with her clients faced with professional liability and complex commercial litigation matters. She helps professionals navigate through disciplinary actions, ethics investigations, malpractice, negligence and breach of fiduciary duty claims and lawsuits.
Melissa is devoted to professional liability defense, defending attorneys, accountants, insurance agents and brokers, title agents, real estate agents and various medical and mental health professionals. During her experience as an AV-rated partner in the firm’s Commercial Litigation and Professional Liability Department, she has successfully represented professionals in the courtroom, arbitrations, and panel proceedings and before various disciplinary boards.
She regularly writes and presents on the subjects of ethics, legal malpractice, and professional responsibility. She is a Committee Member of the ABA National Standing Committee on Lawyers Professional Liability and serves on a number of committees for the ABA Center for Professional Responsibility. Locally, Ms. Lessell is an ad hoc member of the Louisiana State Bar Association’s Rules of Professional Conduct Committee, a member of the Professional Liability Insurance Committee and the Louisiana Bar Foundation and was a member of the Louisiana State Bar Leadership Class. Additionally, Melissa teaches skills courses at Tulane University Law School, teaching Trial Advocacy and the Civil Litigation Intersession Bootcamp.
Melissa is recognized in the fields of professional liability and legal malpractice defense by local, regional and national directories and publications. She has been selected by her peers for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America© 2020 - 2022 for Professional Malpractice Law - Defendants, is recognized as a Super Lawyers “Rising Star” (2017-2021) and was named by New Orleans Magazine as one of their "Top Lawyers" for Professional Liability and Insurance Defense. In 2021, Inside New Orleans named Melissa as an “Favorite Elite Lawyer.”