Melissa Goodman is the Executive Director of the Center on Reproductive Health, Law, and Policy at UCLA Law, a think tank and research center developing long-term, lasting solutions that advance all aspects of reproductive justice and address the current national crisis of abortion access. Melissa leads a team of lawyers, policy experts, researchers, affiliated scholars, and graduate student researchers from the fields of law and public health working to increase access to abortion and contraception, end racial and economic disparities in maternal health outcomes, support people who decide to build families, and dismantle the gender bias that limits reproductive justice. The Center does this by creating innovative legal strategies, policy solutions, and opportunities to convene around some of the most complex issues facing women, pregnant people, and families today.

Melissa is a nationally recognized expert in reproductive rights and gender equity constitutional law and policy. For the past 20 years she has conducted and published research, crafted and helped implement new innovative laws and policies, devised creative legal and litigation strategies, and conducted public writing and speaking to expand access to reproductive rights and justice in the United States. Before joining the Center, Melissa was the Legal and Advocacy Director at the ACLU of Southern California, leading the organization’s 60 attorneys, policy advocates, organizers, and support staff in regional, statewide, and national civil rights and civil liberties work. Before that, Melissa spent a decade advancing reproductive justice, LGBTQ rights, and gender equity litigation and policy advocacy campaigns with the ACLU in California and New York. Melissa also served a Staff Attorney with the ACLU’s National Security Project where she litigated data privacy, free speech, immigrant rights, due process, and Freedom of Information Act cases.

Melissa’s recent writings and publications include: Commentary and Amicus Brief of Over 300 Reproductive Health Researchers Supports Mifepristone’s Safety and Effectiveness published in Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health (2024) and Center on Reproductive Health, Law, and Policy Reports: Unconditional Cash Transfer Programs as a Promising Reproductive and Racial Justice Policy Intervention (Feb. 2025), Pharmacist-Prescribing Hormonal Contraception Barriers, Opportunities, and Policy Solutions (Dec. 2024) and series of reports on how the 2024 election could impact abortion, IVF, and contraception access (Oct. 2024), all available at https://law.ucla.edu/academics/centers/center-reproductive-health-law-and-policy.

Melissa has been awarded the Advancement of Women Award from the Women Lawyers Association of Los Angeles and the Trailblazer Award from Women and Hollywood. Melissa clerked with the Hon. Frederic Block in the Eastern District of New York. Melissa has a JD from NYU School of Law, where she won the John Perry Prize in Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, was a Hays Civil Liberties Fellow, and an articles editor on the Review of Law and Social Change. Melissa has a BA in Politics and Urban Studies from NYU College of Arts and Science.