Melanie Butts is a senior associate with Taylor Blessey LLP. She has over 20 years’ experience defending clients in the areas of medical malpractice, municipal law, premises liability, eminent domain, and inverse condemnation. Earlier in her career she spent six years practicing medical malpractice defense with Denise Taylor and Julianne DeMarco. During that time Ms. Butts participated in all aspects of discovery, successfully arbitrated a case, and second-chaired several trials.
Prior to joining Taylor Blessey in 2013, Ms. Butts was a senior associate at Oliver Sandifer & Murphy where she represented condemning agencies and property owners in the civil litigation aspects of eminent domain and inverse condemnation matters. Ms. Butts represented the City of Burbank in a multi-million-dollar toxic mold case that resulted in a favorable summary judgement for the city. She also defended the cities of Gardena, Covina, and Downey in premises liability, personal injury and excessive use of force matters. While at that firm, Ms. Butts second-chaired two eminent domain cases.
Ms. Butts received her J.D. from Southwestern Law School in 1992. Upon passing the California State Bar in 1993, Ms. Butts was a legal consultant for the production of “Jones & Jury,” a pilot program featuring Star Jones, in which Ms. Butts was responsible for researching legal matters and advising on small claims cases addressed on the show. Ms. Butts then served as a criminal defense attorney on the Attorney Panel of the County of Los Angeles, where she handled the defense of juveniles in appointed criminal matters.
Ms. Butts received her B.A. in Sociology from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1989. She is a member of the Association of Southern California Defense Counsel, and has represented the firm at the Annual Meeting of the National Association of Minority and Women Owned Law Firms.