Melissa L. McDonagh

Melissa L. McDonagh partners with employers to protect and grow their businesses, providing practical, forward-thinking advice on policies, contracts, and practices to safeguard intellectual property, retain valuable employees and mitigate litigation risk. She advises businesses of all sizes, from start-ups to large businesses, on issues impacting the entire employment cycle (including recruiting, hiring, leaves of absence, retention, discipline, and separation), tailoring her advice to the best approach for the business. Melissa’s counseling and litigation experience also enables her to formulate effective strategies for addressing the broad array of complex issues involved with mergers, acquisitions, reductions in force, business re-organization and shutdowns.

Melissa is co-chair of Littler’s Unfair Competition and Trade Secret Practice Group. To protect valuable company assets, Melissa works with employers to formulate effective restrictive covenant programs and to draft multistate compliant restrictive covenant agreements to fit the company’s unique needs. Melissa also routinely represents employers around the country in disputes involving noncompete, nonsolicit, trade secret and other unfair competition claims.

Melissa has extensive experience litigating on behalf of employers in single plaintiff and class and collective actions involving business competition, wage and hour law, whistleblower retaliation, failure to accommodate, and wrongful termination. Early on in litigation, Melissa implements a plan of action based on a big picture strategy driven to achieve a company’s business goals.

Prior to joining Littler, Melissa practiced at a Chicago-based litigation firm where she represented a number of businesses, hospitals, and healthcare corporations involved in complex litigation.