Melissa Kucinski is an attorney and mediator in D.C. and Maryland.  She served as a consultant to the Hague Conference on Private International Law in 2013, and has written a dozen articles published in more than one language on international children’s issues and mediation of complex cross-border custody and abduction cases.

Melissa has presented at nearly 30 national and international conferences on international children’s issues and mediation. Melissa was part of a U.S. Delegation sent to Tokyo, Japan in 2014 to train Japanese mediators to handle international parental child abduction cases under the 1980 Hague Convention on Parental Child Abduction. Melissa has been a long-standing member of the U.S. Secretary of State’s Advisory Committee on Private International Law.  She served as a private sector advisor to the U.S. Delegation to The Hague’s Sixth Special Commission meeting in 2011 to review the practical operation of two international children’s treaties, and she attended the Seventh Special Commission meeting in 2017 with International Social Service (ISS).   She currently chairs ISS’s efforts to create a global network of international family mediation resources.

Melissa has served in a variety of capacities within the American Bar Association, including past chair of an International Family Mediation Task Force, where she spearheaded the effort to design and host a weeklong advanced international family mediation training.   Melissa has taught the International Family Law course at the George Washington University School of Law since 2010.  She is a fellow of the International Academy of Family Lawyers.  Her new book, The Child’s Attorney: A Practical Guide to Representing Children in Custody Cases, will be published later this year.