Melissa Holyoak

Holyoak was born Melissa Ann Watkins on October 6, 1976, in Boise, Idaho.^[1] She graduated from the University of Utah in 2000 with a Bachelor of Arts in French. She then attended the university's S.J. Quinney College of Law, where she was an editor of the Utah Law Review. She graduated in 2003 with a Juris Doctor degree with Order of the Coif membership.^[4]

After graduating from law school, Holyoak was an associate in the Washington, D.C. office of the law firm O'Melveny & Myers from 2003 to 2008 while her husband attended medical school in Baltimore.^[5] After spending several years as a homemaker while raising her and her husband's young children, Holyoak became a part-time public interest attorney with the Center for Class Action Fairness in 2012.^[5] She served as president and general counsel of Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based public interest firm representing consumers challenging unfair class actions and regulatory overreach.^[4] Holyoak was one of the successful petitioners in the 2019 Supreme Court case Frank v. Gaos.^[6][7]

In September 2020,^[8] Holyoak became the Utah Solicitor General with the Utah Attorney General’s Office, where she managed the civil appeals, criminal appeals, constitutional defense and special litigation, and antitrust and data privacy divisions.^[4] In that capacity, she oversaw merger reviews, data privacy, and antitrust enforcement actions and provided leadership in consumer protection matters.^[4]