(RALEIGH) – The law firm of Parker Poe Adams & Bernstein LLP is pleased to announce that Melanie Black Dubis and Russell B. Killen have received the 2006 Triangle Business Journal’s 40 under 40 Leadership Awards. Each year, 40 people under the age of 40 are honored for their community and professional achievements.
Melanie Dubis is a partner and the Firm’s Antitrust & Business Torts Practice Group Leader. She is a commercial litigator who focuses her practice on complex business litigation, intellectual property and antitrust. Melanie has devoted significant attention to public interest litigation serving as a key member of the trial team on the landmark Leandro v. State of North Carolina and Hoke County Board of Education v. State cases, which established the right of all school children to obtain a sound basic education. She has served as pro bono Counsel to the Alliance of AIDS Services-Carolina, on the Carolina Ballet Board of Trustees and serves on the Appellate Rules Advisory Committee of the North Carolina Bar Association. Melanie is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (B.A., with honors, 1992) and Vanderbilt University (J.D., 1995).
Russell Killen is a partner in the Firm’s Commercial Contracts Practice Group and represents clients the area of construction law as well as in zoning and land use matters. He was named to North Carolina magazine’s 2006 “Legal Elite” in construction law. Russell is a member of the Knightdale Town Council and the Executive Committee of the Wake Education Partnership, where he serves as legal counsel. He also served as a member of the Board of Trustees for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, Eastern North Carolina Chapter and the Board of Directors for the Knightdale Chamber of Commerce. Russell received a J.D. from Duke University in 1994, and a B.A. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1991.
Parker Poe Adams & Bernstein LLP currently has more than 175 lawyers, with five offices in the Carolinas including Columbia, Charleston and Spartanburg in South Carolina and Charlotte and Raleigh in North Carolina. The Firm provides a complete range of legal services and has extensive experience in antitrust and business torts, banking and finance, bankruptcy, reorganization and creditors’ rights, commercial litigation, corporate and commercial law, employee benefits, employment, environmental, government, health care, international, mergers and acquisitions, public finance, real estate and commercial development, securities, tax and torts, trial and insurance.