Melissa Holyoak is an American lawyer and politician serving as the solicitor general of Utah. She is a nominee to serve as a member of the Federal Trade Commission.

Education

Holyoak earned her B.A. from the University of Utah.^[1] She attended the University of Utah's S.J. Quinney College of Law, where she was an editor of the Utah Law Review. She graduated in 2003 with a Juris Doctor degree and Order of the Coif membership.^[1]

Career

Holyoak served in positions as a public interest attorney with the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the Center for Class Action Fairness.^[1] She also worked as an associate with O'Melveny & Myers.^[1] Holyoak was a litigator with much of her twenty years of practice focused on consumer protection.^[1] Holyoak served as president and general counsel of Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based public interest firm representing consumers challenging unfair class actions and regulatory overreach.^[1] Holyoak was one of the successful petitioners in the 2019 Supreme Court case Frank v. Gaos.^[2]

In September 2020,^[3] Holyoak became the Utah Solicitor General with the Utah Attorney General’s Office, where she manages the civil appeals, criminal appeals, constitutional defense and special litigation, and antitrust and data privacy divisions.^[1] In that capacity, she oversees merger reviews, data privacy and antitrust enforcement actions, and provides leadership in consumer protection matters.^[1] A Republican, Holyoak was nominated by U.S. president Joe Biden in July 2023 to serve as a member of the Federal Trade Commission.^[4]

Personal life

Holyoak lives in Utah with her husband and four children.^[1]

References