MELISSA VERNE is a managing associate in the Litigation group in the firm's New York office. Melissa received her J.D. from Columbia Law School, where she was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar, and received her L.L.M. with merit from the London School of Economics. While attending Columbia Law School, Melissa served as an editor of the Columbia Journal of Environmental Law . She received her B.A. from Rice University. Prior to joining Sidley, Melissa worked as a law clerk for Jazz at Lincoln Center, where she drafted and edited performance and event agreements, secured licenses for programming, and researched copyright issues.