Abe Melamed

Abe Melamed has a wealth of mediation, arbitration and special master experience spanning a decade. Abe specializes in the practice areas of employment, data privacy and consumer class actions, personal injury, and sexual assault and abuse cases.

Melamed prides himself as the “creative mediator,” approaching each mediation with creativity, passion, and out-of-the-box thinking. He has developed a strong understanding of the parties’ needs in mediation and an ability to adapt his communication and mediation style to different personalities. Melamed is at the cutting-edge of mediation, being one of the first mediators to incorporate Artificial Intelligence (AI) in his practice, hosting a popular video and audio podcast and LinkedIn mediation game, and beta testing virtual reality and multi-dimensional video capabilities for remote mediations.

Prior to his transition to mediation full-time, Melamed had a distinguished career as a civil litigator in a variety of practice areas, including employment, data privacy and consumer class actions, personal injury, and sexual assault and abuse cases.

Melamed began his career working for several well-respected personal injury law firms in New York, litigating cases spanning the spectrum, from medical malpractice, to slip-and-falls and construction accidents, to catastrophic injuries and mass torts. Melamed then transitioned his litigation practice to commercial litigation, joining Gulko Schwed LLP, a firm specializing in complex commercial, corporate and business, real estate litigation and transactions including motion drafting and practice, and patent and trademark filings and prosecution.  Melamed also co-founded L and M Innovations, LLC, a law firm incubator, handling select business, technology, fashion, and consumer innovations. It was through his exposure to employment law and consumer issues in these roles that Melamed found his calling as an employment, data privacy and consumer litigator. Melamed spent the rest of his litigation career handling employment, consumer and data privacy issues in state and federal courts across the country, on both the plaintiff and defense side of the bar. This included serving as the Managing Partner of Derek Smith law Group, one of the country’s largest plaintiff’s firms, serving as in-house counsel to NCD Insurance, a dental and vision insurance provider, and serving as outside employment counsel to various businesses across the country.

Having seen litigation from all sides of the field, Melamed recognized the value in mediation and dispute resolution. Motivated by a career-long fascination with combining law, psychology and emotional intelligence, Melamed made the transition from litigator to full-time neutral, dedicating his career to helping parties reach creative resolutions in the mediation process, and to resolving consumer disputes as an arbitrator and special master.  Melamed brings this experience and passion to Signature Resolution.

Melamed’s extensive background across the practice areas he specializes in includes:

EMPLOYMENT
Melamed is well-regarded by both the plaintiff and defense bar as an employment mediator with a deep understanding of the legal and factual issues that underlie employment cases. A significant portion of Melamed’s practice as a mediator involves helping the parties resolve single-plaintiff discrimination claims and wage & hour class/collective actions and PAGA claims. With a unique career spanning both management-side and in-house employment counsel experience as well as experience as a founding partner of one of the largest plaintiff’s employment firms in the country, Melamed has seen every type of employment case, and indeed made the law on many issues of significance in employment cases across the country.

Melamed began his employment law career with the Derek Smith Law Group, one of the country’s largest plaintiff-side employment litigation firms. Melamed quickly worked his way up from associate to the youngest partner at the firm in the span of only a few years. He was ultimately tasked with founding the Los Angeles office of the firm, where he spent several years as its Managing Partner. During his time with Derek Smith Law Group, Melamed’s legal practice centered on advocating for employees entangled in employment discrimination, sexual harassment, and wage-related disputes. within state and federal courts across California, New York, and Arizona. He adeptly managed a substantial caseload in this capacity, from initial pre-litigation investigations and negotiation phases to eventual trial and appellate processes. In this capacity, he briefed various appellate issues of significance in the 2nd Circuit, the 9th Circuit, and the Supreme Court of the United States.  Melamed also provided direct representation and supervisory guidance for clients throughout hundreds of mediations and dozens of trials and arbitrations across the country.

After focusing primarily on plaintiff-side work, Melamed transitioned to defense-side work as in-house employment counsel for a large insurance company, and founded Melamed Law, LLC, where he practiced management-side employment law. In this role, Melamed acted as outside counsel to several large businesses, including a pharmaceutical manufacturer, a multi-state marijuana conglomerate, an insurance company, a hospital, a medical cost-reporting company, and several nationwide nursing home chains.

After a distinguished career in employment law, Melamed transitioned his practice to mediating employment disputes and is sought after by members of the bar across California, New York, and Arizona as an expert in employment law.

DATA PRIVACY CLASS ACTIONS AND MASS ARBITRATIONS
Melamed is one of the only mediators across the country that has the experience of having previously litigated data breach/data privacy cases. This experience, along with his cutting-edge technological knowledge, makes Melamed especially well-equipped to act as a mediator, arbitrator and special master in data privacy cases across the country. Melamed is routinely called upon to speak on panels about data privacy issues and to provide expert analysis for legal publications such as Law 360 on recent development in data privacy cases.

As the Founding Partner of the Derek Smith Law Group’s nationwide data privacy and consumer class-action group, Melamed litigated several high profiled data privacy and consumer class-actions across the country.  Of significant note, Melamed was counsel in McMorris v. Carlos Lopez & Associates, the seminal case before the Second Circuit that established the standard for evaluating whether plaintiffs have Article III standing in data breach cases. The case has served as a benchmark upon which courts across the country, including the 1st Circuit in Clemens v. ExecuPharm and the 3rd Circuit in Webb v. Injured Workers Pharmacy, base their standing analysis in data breach cases.

Having seen litigation from all sides of the field, Melamed recognized the value in mediation and dispute resolution. Motivated by a career-long fascination with combining law, psychology and emotional intelligence, Melamed made the transition from litigator to full-time neutral, dedicating his career to helping parties reach creative resolutions in the mediation process, and to resolving consumer disputes as an arbitrator and special master. Melamed brings this experience and passion to Signature Resolution.

SEXUAL ASSAULT AND ABUSE CASES
In his capacity as Managing Partner of the Derek Smith Law Group, as well as in-house counsel and management-side counsel, Melamed handled and oversaw hundreds of cases involving rape, sexual assault/abuse, and sexual harassment, including high profile cases such as involving the Harvey Weinstein bankruptcy claims procedure. A trauma informed mediator with the gentle touch necessary to assist victims but a keen ability to cut to the core of the legal issues involved, particularly with child and adult survivor act claims in California and New York, Abe routinely mediates sexual assault, rape and abuse cases across the country.

BEYOND THE COURTROOM
In addition to his vast experience as a neutral, and prior experience as a litigator, Melamed has published scholarship on the topic of parental leave laws in the U.S. with the UCLA Women’s Law Journal, as well as in litigation strategy and mediation with the New York Law Journal and Arizona ADR Forum, and regularly produces mediation resources, including podcasts, blogs, YouTube video series, and e-books. He is also an amateur musician, classically trained in piano, guitar and flute, and he is currently learning the violin, and the inventor of The Piano Art Project, a piano that paints onto a canvas as it is played, resulting in a visualization of the music on canvas and a two-dimensional artistic experience.