Attorney Melissa J. Needle focuses her practice exclusively on family law. Based in Westport, Connecticut, she provides astute advice and counsel to clients throughout Fairfield County–serving Westport, Greenwich, New Canaan, Wilton, Darien, and Fairfield. Ms. Needle has been admitted to practice before all Connecticut state courts since 1990, and she is also admitted to practice in New York.

Attorney Needle’s approach strikes a hard-to-find balance between aggressive client representation and the preservation family. Before starting Needle|Cuda, Attorney Needle found that most firms in the market practiced at the extreme ends of the spectrum — either being overly aggressive or collaborative to a fault.  Needle|Cuda strives to deliver a service that brings clients the best of both worlds to its clients because the long-term dynamic and health of your family is worth protecting.

Attorney Needle specializes is high net worth divorces and deals frequently with closely held family businesses, hedge fund investments/ownership interests, private equity ownership interests, complex family trusts, and other complex assets valuations. A forceful courtroom advocate and expert family law litigator, Attorney Needle has also worked on highly contested custody and relocation disputes, although she strives to help her clients come to an agreement in a less-adversarial manner such as mediation when that is possible.

Ms. Needle’s experience has also encompassed the preparation of prenuptial and postnuptial agreements and various types of protective orders for domestic violence victims.  Attorney Needle also helps clients who have already divorced and who are seeking enforcement of or modifications to existing support and parenting orders. The holder of an “Excellent” peer review rating through Avvo, she has been named as one of the 10 Best Family Law Attorneys in Connecticut by the American Institute of Legal Counsel and a Top 10 Family Law Attorney in Connecticut by Family Law and Practice Magazine. Ms. Needle is a 1987 recipient of a Bachelor of Arts from Tufts University, and she obtained her Juris Doctor from Whittier Law School in 1990. She is a member of the Fairfield County Bar Association and the Family Law Section of the Connecticut Bar Association.