Melissa Mather

Melissa Mather joined Hilliard Shadowen in April 2024, bringing a diverse set of experience representing plaintiffs and defendants in complex litigation.

After graduating from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1997, Ms. Mather clerked for the Honorable Emilio M. Garza on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. She taught appellate advocacy and civil rights litigation at the University of Chicago Law School and national security law at the University of Texas School of Law. She has litigated civil and criminal antitrust cases in the Southern District of New York and argued multiple appeals in the Fifth and Seventh Circuits.

Most recently, she spent over a decade working as a public servant representing the State of Texas and Texas state agencies in complex litigation matters, in state and federal court. In recognition of her excellence in the field of civil litigation, Ms. Mather was awarded the David C. Mattax Award for Excellence in Civil Litigation and was designated Special Litigation Counsel. Her work on one case against a for-profit company alleging that it could offer insurance products under a carve-out for faith-based organizations attracted national attention to the issue of “health care sharing ministries” and has contributed to renewed regulation of these entities.

At Hilliard Shadowen, Ms. Mather focuses on the firm’s antitrust practice, representing a class of merchants seeking to restrain anticompetitive conduct on behalf of two major credit card networks, Visa and Mastercard. In the civil rights arena, Ms. Mather represents the Government of Mexico in its effort to hold gun dealers responsible for their role in funneling American guns into Mexico, arming cartels and harming Mexican citizens.

• University of Virginia, B.A. with distinction, Political and Social Thought, May 1994.
• University of Virginia School of Law, J.D., May 1997

• State of Texas
• State of New York
• Southern District of New York
• Northern District of Illinois
• Northern District of Texas
• Western District of Texas
• Eastern District of Texas
• Southern District of Texas
• Second Circuit Court of Appeals
• Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals
• Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals

The Use of Statistical Evidence to Address Police Supervisory and Disciplinary Practices: the Chicago Police Department’s Broken System, 23 Civil Rights Litigation and Attorneys Fees Annual Handbook 5 (West 2007), with Craig  Futterman and Melanie Miles; reprinted at 1 DePaul Journal for Social Justice  251 (2008) and in Police Misconduct & Civil Rights Law Report, vol. 9 (West 2008).

Thawing Out the “Cold Record”: Some Thoughts on How Videotaped Records May  Affect Traditional Standards of Deference on Direct & Collateral Review, 2 J. App.  Prac. & Process 411 (2000), with Robert C. Owen.