Lefkowitz, Helen

Melissa Villemaire is an Associate with the firm. Her practice covers many areas, with a primary focus on family law matters, including divorce/dissolution, child custody and visitation, child support, alimony, division of property, domestic violence, DYFS defense and many other unique family law issues.

Melissa is strongly rooted in Ocean County, having graduated from Southern Regional High School, in Manahawkin, New Jersey. She earned her Bachelor of Science, with Honors, from Kean University, where she graduated a semester early. After completing her undergraduate degree, she began her career as a real estate secretary, and then pursued her Juris Doctorate at Rutgers School of Law in Camden, New Jersey. At Rutgers, she concentrated her studies on family law.

During her first two years at Rutgers, Melissa was a legal intern at an Ocean County firm, practicing primarily real estate, estate planning and estate administration. In her third year of law school, she served as a judicial intern for Judge Buczynski, Presiding Judge of Chancery Division, in Ocean County.  During the same year, Melissa was selected to be one of eight members of the Domestic Violence Clinic, where she represented victims of domestic violence seeking Final Restraining Orders.

Upon graduation, Melissa accepted a position as a judicial law clerk for the Honorable E. David Millard, Presiding Judge of Family Part in Ocean County, New Jersey. During her clerkship, she was responsible for researching, analyzing and making recommendations regarding a wide range of family law issues, including, but not limited to, calculation of child support and alimony, modification of child support and alimony, child custody and visitation, emancipation, contributions toward college expenses, and enforcement of Final Judgments of Divorce and other Court Orders. Melissa then became an Associate at the Toms River firm of Gilmore & Monahan, where she represented the Ocean County Board of Social Services regarding various family law issues.

Melissa was admitted to the New Jersey State Bar in 2010. She is a member of the American Bar Association, New Jersey State Bar Association, Ocean County Bar Association and the Ocean-Monmouth Family Law Inns of Court.