Melissa M. Piwowar

mpiwowar@donnerco.com

(630) 536-7145

Melissa Piwowar (Paralegal) concentrates her work in corporate and litigation matters involving legal research, discovery and investigation, as well as case file management and corporate maintenance.

She attended Judson College (working toward a degree in Business Administration) and is an AAS graduate (Paralegal Studies) from Elgin Community College, where she was awarded a Judge Ernest B. Akemann Scholarship and ECC Trustee Leadership Scholarship in Paralegal Studies.

Melissa is an active member of the DuPage County Bar Association, which honored her with its Directors Award in 2011, 2014 and 2016. She currently chairs the DCBA Public Interest and Education Commission and the Association's Law Day Program (2016-17). This involves her in the oversight for a number of the bar association's public interest programs including the Veterans Assistance Program, Lawyers Lending a Hand, Speakers Bureau, Middle School Mock Trial Program, and the Legal Access video series.     

Her past work with the DCBA included service as Vice Chair of the DCBA's Community Education Task Force in 2014-15, as Vice Chair for Law Day in 2015-16, and as a member of the Editorial Board for the DCBA Brief (the Association's monthly journal) from 2008 to 2015.

As a member of the DCBA Editorial Board, Melissa served as Assistant Editor (2010-11) and as an Articles Editor for many years. She authored and co-authored a number of articles for the DCBA Brief and served as Editor-in-Chief of the magazine's annual parody edition, the DCBA Grief. IN 2013, her work with the DCBA Grief was honored with a Luminary Award from the National Association of Bar Executives as it was recognized as the best Special Publication among those produced by small bar associations nationwide.

In addition to research and consulting for a number of high profile jury trials, Melissa's work in trial consulting has included membership in the American Society of Trial Consultants from 2007 until 2012 (where she served on the Planning Committee for the 2008 Annual Meeting in Chicago, Illinois) and as a contributing author for two national treatises for Thomson Reuters, including Jury Selection: Strategy and Science and Blue's Guide to Jury Selection.

She is now in her second term as a member of the Communication, Legislation and Partnerships Committee for Glenbard Township High Schools District #87 (her current appointment runs through 2017). She has also served as an Intake Volunteer for the Center for Disability and Elder Law and as an intern under the direction of Judge Keith Brown with the Kane County Child Custody Task Force (a ground breaking project in Illinois where interns studied child custody disputes within divorce cases, documented and evaluated the work of guardians ad litem, as well as child custody evaluators in Kane County, Illinois). She also volunteered at the Kane County Judicial Center where she helped pro se litigants in family court as well as assisting individuals seeking emergency orders of protection.