Areas of Expertise
Business Law, Commercial Transactions, and Financial Restructurings
Courses
Business Transactions in Practice, Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Biography
Melinda Marbes is a practicing attorney and an Adjunct Professor of Law teaching in the Juris Master program at Emory University School of Law. Currently, her teaching and law practice are focused on business and commercial law.
Marbes has extensive experience as a practicing lawyer. She has served a member of in-house legal departments and in private practice at top-tier Atlanta law firms, including at an Am Law 100 firm where she was a partner. During her private law practice, Marbes regularly represented clients in corporate and commercial law matters, including all types of lending deals, financial restructurings, and federal and state insolvency proceedings. She counseled clients who operate in the financial services, manufacturing, real estate, retail, restaurant, transportation, and technology industries.
Marbes presently serves as in-house counsel for a private manufacturing company with business operations around the globe. She is responsible for the commercial contracts and transactions, resolution of commercial disputes, and related compliance matters. In this role, Marbes collaborates with the company’s management, sales, and procurement teams to minimize legal and other risk while meeting the company’s business goals.
For more than 10 years, Marbes served as a full-time faculty member at several ABA accredited law schools teaching a variety of business and commercial law courses, including as a Visiting Professor at Emory Law School teaching in the Transactional Law Program. She has developed and taught both in-person and online courses designed to teach legal knowledge and skills to diverse student populations. At each of the four law schools where she taught full-time, Marbes was honored by students with awards for her outstanding teaching and service.
Marbes has researched, written, and presented works on various business law and legal ethics topics, including published works related to the interplay of cognitive biases and judicial ethics.
Marbes is a life-long learner who brings both enthusiasm and a practical approach to her scholarship, teaching, and law practice.