Melanie H. Stein is a contract attorney at the Law Offices of Jotham S. Stein P.C., when she is not pursuing her own mediation, arbitration, and independent neutral practice. Ms. Stein has tremendous experience in the corporate world. For sixteen years, she served as Managing Director and Assistant General Counsel of Fitch Ratings, one of the three major global credit rating agencies. During her years at Fitch, Ms. Stein counselled and represented Fitch’s largest credit rating services divisions and its regulatory, compliance, credit policy, operations, finance and IT teams.

Ms. Stein started her law career at Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton in New York. Awarded a Ford Foundation Fellowship in Public International Law, in 1992 Ms. Stein joined the Office of the General Counsel of then-fledgling London-based multilateral European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), later moving to its Banking Division. Elected by her peers to the EBRD’s Staff Council, Ms. Stein represented employee perspectives on compensation, benefits, performance evaluation and policy matters and was involved in establishing the EBRD’s first ombuds office. After the EBRD and before joining Fitch Ratings, Ms. Stein worked in the litigation department of Paul Weiss, where, among other things, she represented clients in employment disputes.

Ms. Stein is a member of the American Arbitration Association and FINRA arbitration panels and included on the mediation rosters of the New York Supreme Court (New York County Commercial Division), New Jersey state courts, and the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey

Ms. Stein earned her J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School and her A.B. from Princeton University. Ms. Stein is admitted to practice law in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.