Bio
Melody Vidmar is a Staff Attorney at the ACLU of Maryland focused on immigrants’ rights. Prior to joining the ACLU of MD, she was the 2024-2026 Dash-Muse Teaching Fellow and Supervising Attorney at the Georgetown Law Human Rights Institute, where she taught human rights law and advocacy and led student projects addressing real-world human rights issues, including seeking restitution from French banks for their role in Haiti’s so-called “Independence Debt” and building the legal framework for rights-based climate litigation in the United States.
Before serving as the Dash-Muse Teaching Fellow, Melody was the Staff Attorney at the ACLU of Alaska in Anchorage, Alaska from 2022-2024. She brought federal and state cases on a variety of issues, namely criminal legal reform and the rights of incarcerated people, 2LGBTQIA+ equality, the rights of people experiencing homelessness, government accountability, and voting rights. Previously, Melody was a Staff Attorney at Capital Area Immigrants’ Rights (CAIR) Coalition in Washington, DC (now Amica Center for Immigrant Rights), bringing federal impact litigation on behalf of detained immigrant adults and children.
Melody earned her J.D. (cum laude), LL.M. in Advocacy, and Certificate in Refugees and Humanitarian Emergencies from Georgetown University Law Center, and Bachelor of Arts degrees in Anthropology and Spanish from the University of Oklahoma (summa cum laude). When not working, you can find her trying new Indian dishes, celebrating Halloween year-round, or cuddling with her Chihuahua-Jack Russell mix, Toby.