mpiwowar@donnerco.com

(630) 588-1131

Melissa Piwowar (Attorney) concentrates her practice in employment law and commercial litigation. She joined Donner & Company Law Offices as a paralegal in 2004, continuing to work with the firm while she attended Northern Illinois University College of Law. She joined the Illinois bar as a licensed attorney in 2022.

Melissa earned her Juris Doctorate at Northern Illinois University College of Law where she graduated summa cum laude. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in Paralegal Studies from Loyola University Chicago.

Melissa was inducted into lifetime membership in the Alpha Sigma Nu Jesuit Honor Society in 2017. She was honored by the DuPage County Bar Association with its Directors Award in three different years (2011, 2014, and 2016).

While a a student at NIU Law, she competed in the final round of the Mandell Intraschool Moot Court Competition and was awarded Best Oralist. The DuPage Bar Foundation awarded her its William J. Bauer Scholarship in 2021. 

Melissa served as chair of the DCBA Public Interest and Education Commission in 2016-17 which involved her in the oversight of 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 Legal Access video series. As Chair, she also developed a program through which the Commission became a participant in the Judicial Circuit Pro Bono Program for the Public Interest Law Initiative.

She served as the Inaugural Chair for the PILI/Eighteenth Judicial Circuit Pro Bono Committee in 2016-17 and has remained a member.

She served as Vice Chair (2015-16) and as Chair (2016-17) for DCBA's Law Day Program, Vice Chair of the DCBA's Community Education Task Force (2014-15),  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 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, from 2008 to 2015. In 2013, her work with the DCBA Grief was honored with a Luminary Award from the National Association of Bar Executives (the DCBA Grief was recognized as the best Special Publication among those produced by small bar associations nationwide).

Melissa is in her fourth term as a member of the Communication, Legislation and Partnerships Committee for Glenbard Township High Schools District #87. She 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 served as a volunteer for the Kane County Judicial Center where she helped pro se litigants in family court as well as individuals seeking emergency orders of protection.