Mia Mazza's practice focuses on representing issuers and related parties in federal and state securities litigation, including shareholder class actions, derivative actions, internal corporate investigations, and other matters involving director and officer liability. She has represented numerous issuers, officers, and directors from a broad range of industries, including financial services, computer hardware and software, and consumer products. Selected representative matters listed below.
Ms. Mazza is the founder and current Chair of Morrison & Foerster's E-Discovery Task Force. In this role she leads a team of Litigation partners that acts as an internal resource for all litigators in helping solve e-discovery challenges as they arise in practice. The E-Discovery Task Force is also responsible for internal training, setting the firm's internal risk management policies around e-discovery, and maintaining the firm's E-Discovery Task Force Handbook.
Ms. Mazza regularly counsels clients on all aspects of data lifecycle management, with a primary focus on mitigating the risks and costs associated with discovery of data in litigation and investigations.
Ms. Mazza also works with the firm's Cleantech practice in identifying and addressing unique securities-related challenges that may arise from increased government regulation of carbon emissions and other climate change-related developments.
Prior to joining the firm, Ms. Mazza served as a Deputy Attorney General for the California Department of Justice. In that role, she represented the People of the State of California in criminal appeals and federal habeas matters. While in law school, Ms. Mazza clerked for the Environmental Crimes Unit of the Alameda County District Attorney's Office, the Environment & Natural Resources Division of the United States Department of Justice, and the Criminal Division of the United States Department of Justice.
Ms. Mazza earned her B.A. from the University of Southern California, where she was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and the Trojan Marching Band. She earned her J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, Boalt Hall School of Law, where she was the recipient of the Ecology Law Research Institute Writing Grant, 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).
Ms. Mazza is a member of the Association of Business Trial Lawyers, Society of Corporate Secretaries and Governance Professionals, ARMA International (formerly the Association of Records Managers and Administrators), the Commonwealth Club of California, the World Affairs Council, Bay Area Lawyers for Individual Freedom (BALIF), and many other national, state, and local bar associations. She also serves as Chair of the firm's Berkeley Law School (Boalt Hall) alumni recruiting group.