Melanie Riley

Career

Melanie Riley has over 25 years’ experience in the field of legal and corporate communications, public affairs, and litigation PR.

She co-founded Bell Yard Communications in 2002. Melanie has provided litigation PR and legal communications advice to clients on a wide variety of issues ranging from commercial disputes to white collar crime, from matrimonial disputes to employment litigation. She is instructed on behalf of businesses, law firms, chambers, charities and high-profile individuals across a number of jurisdictions.

She leads the agency’s issues management work, advising legal teams, HNWs, senior executives and PR teams on communications responses to risks to business or to private lives becoming public property. She has also advised entities in respect of the media interest in inquiries and in coroners’ inquests.

Melanie also heads Bell Yard’s specialist campaign assignments. She spearheaded a UK-based programme to highlight the inequality in the UK/US extradition regime, exposing the human stories behind the legislation, and founded a voluntary organisation was designed to help victims of unjust US extradition requests. She has also assisted individuals subjected to EAWs and international extradition requests, to highlight the inequity of their plights.