MELISSA LARDO STEWART is a partner at Outten & Golden LLP in New York, where she represents employees in class action wage and discrimination cases.  She has represented workers across many industries and job functions, including retail, sales, food service, hospitality, financial services, accounting, and telecommunications.  She has prosecuted wage theft claims on behalf of workers who were required to work off-the-clock, subjected to time-shaving, wrongly classified as exempt from overtime protections, and improperly treated as independent contractors.  Ms. Stewart also currently represents employees and applicants in class and collective action gender and age discrimination cases.

Before Ms. Stewart joined Outten & Golden LLP in November 2013, she clerked for the Honorable James Orenstein in the Eastern District of New York and the Honorable Dickinson R. Debevoise in the District of New Jersey, and represented workers and labor unions as an associate at Woodley & McGillivary in Washington, D.C.  She graduated magna cum laude from Fordham University School of Law in 2009.