Melissa Merk
Melissa Merk is an accomplished attorney who worked for many years on complex litigation with two large, global law firms on cases involving pharmaceuticals and medical devices. Her practice with Kline & Specter focuses, similarly, on mass torts concerning product liability cases.
In litigation regarding pharmaceutical anti-psychotic medication, Merk managed some 7,500 cases. She participated as trial counsel in a number of matters as well as conducting and defending hundreds of depositions.
Immediately before joining Kline & Specter, Merk was a partner at Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP, a law firm with offices across the United States and abroad. She served as a member and later vice chair of the firm’s Products Liability Practice Group.
Merk directed a team of partners, associates and paralegals in litigation as well as coordinating with experts to review cases and present reports, drafting pre-trial and trial motions, and preparing cases for trial. In addition to work on anti-psychotic drug litigation, Merk also managed the firm’s vaginal mesh litigation team.
Prior to that experience, she was an attorney with another global law firm, Reed Smith LLP, where she worked on commercial litigation before transitioning to the firm’s product liability group. In that capacity, she prepared for and participated in numerous mass tort trials involving prescription medications and assisted in managing thousands of mass tort claims.
Before working as a lawyer at Reed Smith, Merk was a law clerk to U.S. District Judge Joseph H. Rodriguez for the District of New Jersey. She was also a law clerk at the Lawrenceville, N.J., firm of Hinkle, Fingles & Prior which provides specialized legal services for seniors and families of children and adults with disabilities.
Merk earned her bachelor’s degree at Rider University and was named a Presidential Scholar each year of her attendance. She attended Rutgers University School of Law, where she was a Dean’s Merit Scholar, lead articles editor for the Rutgers Law Journal, and was a teaching assistant for First Year Research and Writing and the Moot Court program.
Merk is admitted to practice in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and the District of Columbia.
