Meet Melanie
Principal
Melanie Schleiger is a Melbourne-based sexual harassment and discrimination lawyer with 20 years of experience helping people understand and enforce their rights. She is the Principal Lawyer of Melanie Schleiger Legal, a specialist practice representing people who have experienced sexual harassment and other forms of discrimination.
Melanie is a sexual harassment law expert with experience spanning public, commercial and international law. She established Victoria Legal Aid’s specialist discrimination law service, the Equality Law Program, which she led for more than a decade. From 2023-2025 she held the role of Special Advisor – Strategic Litigation, supervising the team’s most complex and strategic legal cases and led much of its law reform work.
Melanie has contributed extensively to improving laws and public policy on discrimination, equality and sexual harassment. She has coordinated coalitions, appeared as an expert witness before Parliamentary inquiries into anti-discrimination law and briefed the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights on Australia’s compliance with its international obligations concerning non-discrimination, equality and freedom of association.
Melanie was Senior Advisor to the Independent Review of Sexual Harassment in Victorian Courts and VCAT, and served on the Board of the Human Rights Law Centre for ten years.
She holds a Bachelor of Laws (Honours), Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Laws.
Melanie’s combination of legal expertise, litigation experience and understanding of the impact of sexual harassment informs a sensitive, trauma-informed and practical approach to legal advice.
She recognises that there is rarely one way to respond to sexual harassment or discrimination. Her role is to support clients to understand their options, identify what matters to them and make informed choices about the pathway and outcomes that best reflect their circumstances and goals.