Melissa Stear Gorsline was counsel in some of the earliest and most cutting-edge investor-State arbitrations in ICSID and UNCITRAL history, with a focus on public international law and treaty-based arbitration. Melissa played an integral role in some of the first international investment arbitrations brought pursuant to Chapter Eleven of NAFTA in the late 1990s. Since then she has handled numerous additional treaty-based investment arbitrations, including those setting important legal precedents on the rules of treaty succession and the scope of the "illegality" or "corruption" objection to jurisdiction. She has significant experience representing corporate clients in claims for denial of justice, denial of fair and equitable treatment, nationalistic discrimination, expropriation, and umbrella clause (contract) violations, as well as in defending all manner of jurisdictional objections and merits defenses.
Likewise, Melissa has a wide variety of experience in complex international commercial litigation and arbitration, generally arising from an alleged breach of contract. She has experience arbitrating such matters pursuant to various arbitration rules and in litigating them in U.S. federal and state courts. Melissa has significant experience in Section 1782 discovery and other U.S. litigation related to foreign or international proceedings. She also has significant experience representing corporate clients in RICO and other quasi-criminal matters, on both the plaintiff and the defense side.
Melissa is the current vice chair (and past chair) of the Virginia State Bar International Practice Section's Board of Governors and an adjunct professor of International Arbitration at the University of Maryland Carey School of Law.
