Member Profiles

Contact Details

Melissa Yates
William Forster Chambers

Level 1
26 Harry Chan Avenue
DARWIN NT 0801

GPO Box 4369
DARWIN NT 0801

Tel: (08) 8982 4700
Fax:
Email: myates@williamforster.com

Year and Place of First Admission

2007, Queensland

Other Jurisdictions

Northern Territory, High Court, Federal Court & Tribunals.

Degrees

Masters of Applied Law (Wills & Estates), College of Law

Bachelor of Laws, Queensland University of Technology

Bachelor of Applied Science (Biotechnology), Queensland University of Technology

Masters of Professional Accounting, University of Southern Queensland

Areas of Practice

All areas of civil litigation with particular expertise in Wills & Estates, Trust & Equitable Claims and Construction & Engineering Disputes. 

Career

Melissa was admitted as a lawyer in 2007 and commenced her legal career as a solicitor with Dale & Fallu in Queensland, undertaking a broad range of matters.  In 2009, Melissa took over the wills and estates practice of Dale & Fallu in addition to overseeing their busy conveyancing practice.

Melissa relocated to the Northern Territory in 2011 to join De Silva Hebron as a civil litigator, whilst also continuing to develop her wills and estates practice.  While at De Silva Hebron, Melissa was involved in a number of complex high value civil and construction disputes in the Northern Territory Supreme Court and went on to complete a Masters degree in Applied Law, specialising in Wills & Estates in 2015.

Melissa commenced work as an Associate at Ward Keller in 2017, continuing her leading wills and estates practice in addition to managing complex civil litigation matters for clients of the firm.

Due to her accounting and taxation background, Melissa has particular expertise in trust and estate disputes and is known as one of the leading practitioners in this field in the Northern Territory, teaching the Succession Law subject to undergraduate law students at Charles Darwin University.

Melissa is also the contributing editor for the Northern Territory of the 6th edition of Family Provision in Australia published by LexisNexis (De Groot & Nickel).

Using her accounting and legal acumen Melissa also contributes to many boards on a volunteer basis and has been the chair of the GTNT Group for over 5 years.

In July 2021, Melissa was called to the Bar and practices as a barrister at William Forster Chambers.