Melanie Sloan is a partner in Summer Strategies, a crisis management firm and serves as Senior Advisor to the government watchdog group American Oversight. She previously served as the founding Executive Director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), and is a nationally recognized expert on congressional ethics. Prior to starting CREW, she served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the District of Columbia where, from 1998-2003, she successfully tried cases before dozens of judges and juries. Before becoming a prosecutor, Ms. Sloan served as Minority Counsel for the House Judiciary Committee, working on criminal justice issues for then-Ranking Member John Conyers (D-MI). Ms. Sloan also served as Counsel for the Crime Subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee, chaired by then-Representative Charles Schumer (D-NY). There, she drafted portions of the 1994 Crime Bill, including the Violence Against Women Act. In 1993, Ms. Sloan served as Nominations Counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee, under then-Chairman Joseph Biden (D-DE).
Prior to working for the Congress, she was an associate at Howrey and Simon in Washington D.C. Ms. Sloan received her B.A. and J.D. from the University of Chicago and has published in the Yale Law and Policy Review, and numerous other publications. Frequently called upon by national news programs to provide analysis, Ms. Sloan has appeared on numerous radio and television outlets including National Public Radio, CNN, MSNBC, NBC, CBS, ABC and Al Jazeera. Ms. Sloan also regularly provides insight to newspapers and magazines across the country including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and Rolling Stone, which named her One of the Year's Greatest Mavericks in 2006. She has been profiled in a number of publications including: Ms. Magazine, Time Magazine and Mother Jones. Ms. Sloan has also been named one of Washington, DC’s Top Grassroots Lobbyists by The Hill for three years running and was profiled in the September 2009 issue of O Magazine as part of the O Power List. The National Law Journal named Ms. Sloan on of “Washington's Most Influential Women Lawyers.”