Mia Mazza is a partner in the firm’s Securities Litigation and White-Collar Defense Practice Group, resident in the San Francisco office. She joined the firm as an associate in 2000 after serving as Deputy Attorney General in the Criminal Division of the California Department of Justice, where she represented the People of the State of California in state criminal appellate and federal habeas matters.

Ms. Mazza’s practice focuses on representing issuers and related parties in federal and state securities litigation, including shareholder class actions, derivative actions, and matters involving director and officer liability. She also represents financial services companies in other areas of class action litigation.

Ms. Mazza earned her B.A., magna cum laude, in 1991 from the University of Southern California, where she was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. She received her J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, Boalt Hall School of Law in 1996. While in law school, she was a member of Ecology Law Quarterly and authored the comment, “The New Evidentiary Privilege for Environmental Audit Reports: Making the Worst of a Bad Situation,” 23 ECOLOGY L.Q. 79 (1996). After joining the firm, she co-authored “In Pursuit of FRCP 1: Creative Approaches to Cutting and Shifting the Costs of Discovery of Electronically Stored Information,” 13 Rich. J.L. & Tech. 11, Spring 2007, with Emmalena Quesada and Ashley Sternberg.

Ms. Mazza has represented the following issuers, and/or officers/directors thereof, as parties or third parties in securities cases/investigations: Adobe Systems Inc., Avant! Corporation, Capital One Financial Corp., The Clorox Company, First Brands Corporation, Harmonic Inc., Hewlett-Packard Company, Infineon Technologies AG, Infineon Technologies North America Corp., Macromedia, Inc., Madge Networks N.V., NextCard, Inc., Providian Financial Corporation, Washington Mutual, Inc., World Access, Inc., and Yahoo! Inc. Ms. Mazza is the founder of the firm’s E-Discovery Task Force.

Recent Publications

• “ In Pursuit of FRCP 1: Creative Approaches to Cutting and Shifting the Costs of Discovery of Electronically Stored Information ,” 13 Rich. J.L. & Tech. 11, Spring 2007 (co-authors Emmalena Quesada and Ashley Sternberg).
• “‘ Good Faith’ Safe Harbor of FRCP 37(f) to Prevent Drowning in Zubulake? ,” Vol. 15, No. 2, ABA Section of Litigation Committee on Trial Evidence Newsletter, Winter 2007 (co-author Ashley Sternberg).

Recent Speeches

• “eDiscovery — Bench & Bar Perspectives,” Recorder Roundtable Program, Commonwealth Club of San Francisco, September 22, 2005.
• “Tips for Successfully Managing the E-Discovery Process,” Marcus Evans Legal & Strategic Guide to E-Discovery Conference, San Francisco, March 28, 2006.
• “Being Proactive – Developing a Plan for Electronic Discovery,” Mealey’s Email Discovery & Retention Policies Conference, San Francisco, May 18, 2006.
• “Surviving ‘The ED Age’ Together,” LegalTech West Coast Conference, Los Angeles, June 6, 2006.
• “Introducing the New ‘E-Discovery’ Amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure,” Annual Conference of the American Bar Association, Honolulu, August 5, 2006.