Gibson Dunn is pleased to announce that Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) agency veteran Mellissa Campbell Duru has joined the firm’s Washington, D.C. office as a partner in the Securities Regulation and Corporate Governance Practice Group. Mellissa’s practice will focus on advising clients on a broad range of SEC disclosure and compliance and corporate governance matters, including domestic and cross-border M&A advisory matters, strategic shareholder engagement, climate risk and compliance disclosures, and cybersecurity governance and incident reporting.

“We are excited to welcome Mellissa to our preeminent team,” said Elizabeth A. Ising, Co-Chair of the firm’s Securities Regulation and Corporate Governance Practice Group. “With over 18 years of combined SEC and Division of Corporation Finance experience, Mellissa adds further depth to our market-leading practice. Mellissa has extensive firsthand knowledge of and oversaw recently enacted SEC disclosure requirements and interpretative positions. Her public and private sector experience advising companies will be invaluable to clients as they navigate current SEC requirements and anticipated changes. I’ve known Mellissa for many years, and her reputation as a hands-on, thoughtful, and engaged advisor precedes her. I am so pleased to now call her a colleague.”

“I am absolutely thrilled to join Gibson Dunn,” said Mellissa. “The depth of SEC experience at Gibson Dunn and its unique, stand-alone Securities Regulation and Corporate Governance platform are truly extraordinary. It was a privilege to have worked with the talented staff at the SEC; I am excited to now work alongside my talented colleagues at Gibson Dunn.”

Gibson Dunn’s Securities Regulation and Corporate Governance Practice Group regularly represents Fortune 100 and 500 companies on a variety of disclosure and regulatory issues, corporate governance issues, and shareholder matters. The firm has a deep bench of senior SEC alumni and longstanding relationships with the stock exchanges and the proxy advisory and governance-rating services.

Gibson Dunn continues to add premier legal talent from government amid an unprecedented period of strategic expansion in the firm’s history. Recent additions include Osman Nawaz, former SEC Enforcement Senior Officer and National Unit Chief; Jake M. Shields, former Senior Trial Counsel in the Fraud Section of the Civil Division at the U.S. Department of Justice; Katlin McKelvie, who joined after serving senior roles at the Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Health and Human Services; and Stuart Delery, former White House Counsel.

About Mellissa Campbell Duru

Prior to joining Gibson Dunn, Mellissa was a senior officer and Deputy Director of the Division of Corporation Finance, Legal Regulatory Policy at the SEC. As Deputy Director, Mellissa oversaw the Office of Mergers & Acquisitions, Office of International Corporation Finance, Office of Small Business Policy, Office of Structured Finance, and the Office of Rulemaking. Prior to serving in this role, Mellissa was counsel and a Vice-co-chair of the ESG practice in private practice at an international law firm.

Mellissa also served in several roles at the SEC from 2004 to 2021, including Counsel to then-Commissioner Kara Stein, Special Counsel in the Division of Corporation Finance’s Office of Mergers and Acquisitions, and Cybersecurity Legal and Policy Advisor in the Division of Examinations.

Throughout her career, Mellissa’s experience has focused on the Securities Act of 1933 and Securities Exchange Act of 1934; public company reporting obligations; registered business combination transactions and contested solicitations, domestic and cross-border tender offers, going-private transactions, beneficial ownership reporting, and advising on strategic shareholder engagement and activism trends; corporate governance; environmental, social and governance advisory work; and cybersecurity governance, preparedness, and incident reporting.

Mellissa earned her law degree from Harvard Law School in 1999.

First up this week is a Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher team led by Theane Evangelis and Blaine Evanson, who previously landed Runners-Up honors in November for knocking out a $198 million punitive damages award against UPS in a retaliation and wrongful termination suit brought by a Black delivery driver in Yakima, Washington. Last week U.S. District Judge Thomas Rice in Spokane went a step further and tossed the $39.6 million compensatory damages award in the case and ordered a new trial. Rice found the plaintiff’s counsel “unfairly influenced the jury’s award” by repeatedly violating a ruling excluding the time-barred contents of a 2018 Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint.

The Gibson Dunn team also included Madeleine McKenna, Josh Zuckerman and Min soo Kim, with co-counsel from the trial team at Ogletree Deakins including Elizabeth Falcone, Michael Mitchell and Florence Mao.

Meanwhile, fresh off Litigator of the Week honors in January for landing a directed verdict win for Cisco Systems Inc. in a patent trial in Waco, Texas, Gibson Dunn’s Brian Rosenthal paired with partner Kate Dominguez for yet another West Texas trial win for Cisco. Last week jurors sided with Cisco in a case brought on behalf of Brazos Licensing and Development accusing Cisco’s networking routers of infringing a patent related to the use of diameter dictionaries. The verdict appears to be the first defense win under Section 273, which allows a defendant to base a noninfringement defense on its prior commercial use of the claimed invention.

The Gibson Dunn team included Allen Kathir, Emily Whitcher, Ryan Jin and Claire Santiago.

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Reprinted with permission from the February 21, 2025 edition of “The AmLaw Litigation Daily” © 2025 ALM Global Properties, LLC. All rights reserved. Further duplication without permission is prohibited, contact 877-256-2472 or asset-and-logo-licensing@alm.com.