Debevoise & Plimpton associate Alisa Melekhina is one of 12 women to qualify this year for the U.S. Women’s Chess Championship, a two-week tournament that will take place in St. Louis in April. Born in Ukraine and raised in Philadelphia, Melekhina was taught to play chess by her father when she was 5. By age 9 she was representing the United States in international tournaments. She has since competed in China, Ecuador, Spain, Greece, Georgia, Argentina and Poland and has qualified for the U.S. women’s championship six times.
At 23, Melekhina is the youngest lawyer at Debevoise, where she works on white-collar criminal litigation. Because she had taken college classes while in high school, Melekhina was able to graduate early from Drexel University and enroll at the University of Pennsylvania Law School when she was 20. She says that she sees a lot of crossover between chess and law.
