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Jeanette Melendez Bead, a partner in the firm, represents news, entertainment and other media organizations in libel, privacy and related matters in courts around the country.  Her work includes the defense of defamation and related tort claims, access and subpoena matters, and prepublication and prebroadcast review.  In Parker v. The Daily Pennsylvanian, Ms. Bead served as trial counsel in a defamation action arising from a news article reporting about the plaintiff’s discrimination lawsuit against the University of Pennsylvania and successfully argued before the Pennsylvania Superior Court to uphold a compulsory non-suit granted in favor of the defendants at the close of the plaintiff’s case.  In addition, she successfully represented King World Productions, Inc. in a trespass and federal wiretap action arising out of an Inside Edition undercover investigation of traveling magazine sales companies.  She has also served as prebroadcast review counsel for America’s Most Wanted and regularly conducts client seminars on ways to reduce the risk of exposure to and liability for defamation and other tort claims.
 
Ms. Bead has served as an Adjunct Professor at the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism, teaching Media Law to undergraduate students.  She is a member of the American Bar Association’s Forum on Communications Law; the Hispanic National Bar Association; and the American Bar Association’s Minority Trial Lawyer Committee.  She served as Secretary of the Hispanic Bar Association of Pennsylvania in 2001-2002.  In June 2006, Ms. Bead served as a panelist at a program titled “Free Speech or Abusive Portrayal:  Press Freedom and Minority Sensibilities” at the ABA’s National Conference for the Minority Lawyer in Philadelphia. 

Ms. Bead completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania, receiving her B.A. in 1995, magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa.  She received her J.D. from The Yale Law School in 1998.  Prior to joining LSKS in 2002, Ms. Bead was associated with Montgomery, McCracken, Walker & Rhoads, LLP, in Philadelphia.  She is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia, Pennsylvania, and the United States District Courts for the District of Columbia and the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.