Melanie A. Petersen is a partner in the San Diego area office.  In her practice, she provides legal advice and representation to school boards and school administration statewide in charter school issues, personnel, employment discrimination, administrative hearings, collective bargaining, student discipline, labor law and state legislation.  Ms. Petersen served fifteen years as in-house counsel for San Diego Unified School District.  She has appeared before federal and state courts, the Public Employment Relations Board, Commission on Teacher Credentialing, EEOC, DFEH and OCR on behalf of school districts.

Ms. Petersen is the chair of the firm’s Charter School Practice Group.  She is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Southern California, Ed.D. Program and lecturer in the Masters Tier II Administrative Program at Cal Poly Pomona.  She is a prolific writer and speaker on legal issues in education, lectures at a number of universities on issues of education law, and is a frequent presenter at ACSA, CSBA, NSBA and several other professional organizations.  She is the 2008-09 President of the California Council of School Attorneys.  She has two published appellate decisions and is co-author of “Will Labor Code Section 96(k) Affect Discipline Decisions in Public Employment?” for the California Labor and Employment Quarterly, Summer 2000 and various articles in NSBA publications. 

Ms. Petersen received her law degree from University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law, and a B.A. from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Ms. Petersen works closely with the Association of California School Administrators to assist education leaders throughout the state in understanding all aspects of charter school law.