Melissa Perez

Melissa supports the firm’s litigation matters across its core practice areas, including securities fraud, shareholder rights, and other complex commercial actions on behalf of institutional investors. Her work spans every stage of litigation, from investigation and case development through discovery, motion practice, and trial preparation. Melissa brings a rigorous, detail-driven approach that strengthens case strategy and delivers results for clients.

Melissa’s background sits at the intersection of securities law and financial regulation. Before joining RKS as an attorney, she served as a law clerk at the firm and built hands-on financial-industry experience as a compliance analyst at Gemini, a digital asset exchange and custodian, and as an anti-money laundering investigator at TD Bank. While at Rutgers Law School, she served as a Fintech Research Fellow at the Rutgers Center for Corporate Law and Governance and published scholarship in the Rutgers Law Record examining the Second Circuit’s pleading standards under Section 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act in the rise of SPAC litigation. Melissa earned her J.D. from Rutgers Law School and her B.A. from The George Washington University, with additional studies at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. She effectively leverages her regulatory, investigative, and scholarly background to advance the interests of the firm’s investment management clients.

Publications

Writing a Blank Check: Revisiting the Second Circuit’s Pleading Standards of Securities Exchange Act Section 20(a) in the Rise of SPAC Litigation, 50 Rutgers L. Rec. 1 (2022)