Mary Lauren Melton

Mary Lauren Melton has been practicing as a litigation attorney since her graduation from the University of Kentucky College of Law.

Mary graduated cum laude with her Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Armstrong Atlantic State University. In addition to being a self-supported single mother in college, Mary participated in undergraduate moot court during her senior year, moving on to the National Undergraduate Moot Court Tournament and ranking as a top ten oralist.

Mary also holds a Master of Arts from the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce. Over the course of her graduate career, she was deeply interested in intrastate conflict, African politics, and international tribunals, often selecting research topics that encompassed at least some element of each.

Mary has served in the Kentucky Army National Guard since 2009. In 2010, she received the Army Achievement Medal for being the Distinguished Honor Graduate of her class at the Army’s paralegal school, a title earned by achieving the top academic grade point average and physical fitness score.

During her time in law school, Mary worked towards a commission through Army ROTC at the University of Kentucky. She earned an overall “E” at the Leadership Development and Assessment Course, an honor received by about a fifth of cadets, surpassing the three excellent evaluations required to receive an overall “E” with five out of six excellent evaluations. Ranking number one on UK ROTC’s Order of Merit List, Mary served as commander of Wildcat Battalion in Fall 2012.

During her final year of law school, Mary was one of six members of the University of Kentucky National Moot Court Team. She also received the CALI award for her work with the Kentucky Innocence Project.

Mary started working with the Golden Law Office’s partners–Dale Golden and Justin Peterson–in August 2013. Together, they have tackled complicated issues, including the interpretation of ambiguous insurance contracts in favor of an injured party; fighting worker’s compensation immunity for an undeserving tortfeasor; clarifying the law on causation in employment retaliation cases (see our brief here and the Sixth Circuit’s opinion here); forging new ground in products liability cases where the product in question was completely destroyed by fire; and working to preserve important state law remedies for employees in the face of ever-expanding federal jurisdiction (see our Petition to the United States Supreme Court here).

Mary recently took a brief hiatus from active litigation in order to attend the Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School in Charlottesville, VA. earning a place on the Commandant’s List in the 196th Officer Basic Course. During her time in Charlottesville, Mary happily executed an order to provide her classmates with a daily brief on Wildcat basketball, successfully recruiting a few more fans to the Big Blue Nation.

Upon returning to Lexington, Mary has continued her work in personal injury and employment law. Mary lives in Lexington with her husband, son, and two charming dogs. She enjoys taking classes at Big Blue Crossfit & Pilates and Sterling Hot Yoga Works. Mary reads the national news daily, but is not a news junkie. Despite her tendency to read online publications, she also believes that it is important to disconnect from devices on a regular basis, using meditation and gardening to help her appreciate all of the non-electronic gifts that this world has to offer. Call today to schedule a consultation with Mary or one of our other experienced Lexington, KY lawyers today.