Melanie Kay

Professor Melanie Kay is a Faculty Instructor who joined the University of Colorado Law School in 2015 as the Director of the Daniels Fund Ethics Initiative Collegiate Program at Colorado Law. The Initiative focuses on helping law students develop strong, principled ethical and professional identities through courses, experiential programming, and other hands-on opportunities. She is also a Co-Director of Colorado Law’s Master of Studies of Law (MSL) in Ethics and Compliance degree program. Professor Kay teaches a variety of legal ethics and ethical culture courses to both JD and MSL students at the law school.

Professor Kay came to Colorado Law after ten years of litigation experience. She primarily practiced environmental law with the non-profit, public interest law firm Earthjustice in Denver, Colorado. She has also practiced general civil litigation at Latham & Watkins in San Francisco, California, and Wheeler Trigg O’Donnell in Denver, Colorado. Immediately after law school, she clerked on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals for the Honorable Procter Hug, Jr. in Reno, Nevada. Professor Kay earned her JD from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, her MS in Environmental Geochemistry from the University of Montana, and her AB in Earth Sciences from Dartmouth College.