Melissa C. Meirink

Melissa Meirink was appointed to the Colorado Court of Appeals by Governor Polis in January 2025. Before that, she served as a staff attorney for the Colorado Supreme Court for over ten years. Prior to beginning her career in public service, Judge Meirink worked as an environmental regulatory compliance attorney, where she specialized in federal Indian Law and historic preservation for eight years at Greenberg Traurig and Holland and Hart. In this capacity, she collaborated with clients, Indian tribes, and federal and state agencies to build natural resource projects in a way that preserved historic properties, Indigenous cultures, and sacred tribal sites. Judge Meirink earned her B.A. from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 2001, and her J.D. magna cum laude from Seattle University in 2005, where she served as the Secretary for the Native American Law Students Association and the Executive Editor of the Seattle Journal for Social Justice. 

Judge Meirink is Indigenous Mexican (Sonoran Yaqui). She was born in Torreón, Coahuila, Mexico, and is extremely active in the Hispanic and Native communities. She serves on the State’s Access to Justice Commission and is the co-chair of the Colorado Hispanic Bar Association’s (CHBA) Access to Justice taskforce.