My career has always been advocacy. As a lawyer, I represent businesses starting up in California’s complicated regulatory environment, victims of fraud trying to recover what was taken from them, and people and businesses fighting back against government overreach. I appear in the California Courts of Appeal, before state regulatory agencies, and before city councils and county boards of supervisors throughout the state. I continue to build relationships with state and local officials and the key policymakers whose decisions shape what happens to my clients.

My current legal work is a continuation of the advocacy I have done for a long time. I founded The Fox Firm in 1999 and have practiced California law ever since. From 2016-2020 I served as an elected member of the Irvine City Council, where I led work on affordable housing, public safety, fiscal accountability, and environmental policy. I also served on the Orange County Fire Authority and the Great Park Board, and Chaired the Irvine Community Land Trust. I testified before the California Legislature on housing and the environment. The work I do now has changed in form but not in purpose.

Posts here will range. Some will be about cases and clients I’m working with — the kinds of advocacy I do, the questions that come up, the law as it actually operates. Some will be about California government — what is happening in Sacramento, in the agencies, in the cities and counties, and what it means for the people who have to live with the decisions. Some will be about whatever else seems worth saying at the moment.

To anyone returning here from my Irvine years — I am glad to reconnect. The archive of writing from my Irvine City Council years remains on this blog.

For anyone new here, welcome!

— Melissa

The Fox Firm represents clients throughout California. Melissa is reachable at melissa@melissafoxlaw.com.