Biography

Veena Mitchell focuses her practice on commercial and complex tort litigation, land use, professional liability, and insurance coverage. She has practiced insurance law for virtually her entire legal career, and now specializes in directors and officers insurance, errors and omissions coverage and other commercial insurance concerns. She has also devoted a large portion of her practice to the defense of professional liability claims on behalf of real estate, legal and insurance professionals.

Prior to joining Sedgwick, she served as deputy county counsel for the County of Sonoma, and as counsel for the Sonoma County Water Agency and other public entities. In that role, she prosecuted building and zoning code violations and handled environmental, construction, public works, water and land use matters.

In addition to her public law practice, Ms. Mitchell was a litigator at the law firms of Howard Rice Nemerovski Canady Falk & Rabkin and Bronson, Bronson & McKinnon, where she focused her practice on real estate, products liability and insurance coverage.

Ms. Mitchell has tried civil cases to verdict and has represented clients in arbitrations and mediations. She has also achieved the dismissal of many cases via motions for summary judgment and motions to dismiss.

Memberships & Honors

Ms. Mitchell has regularly volunteered as an arbitrator (1996-present), as well as served the Sonoma County Superior Court (1996-present) and the San Francisco Superior Court (2004-present). She also volunteers her time for presentations to the community on "Teens and the Law," endeavoring to take the mystery out of the legal system for teenagers and their parents and to offer insight on matters of criminal and civil law.

In 1999, she was appointed by the State Bar of California to serve for three-year terms on its Women in Law Committee and the Alternative Dispute Resolution Committee. In that role, she presented on the subject of elimination of bias in the legal profession, at continuing education programs for lawyers and at panel discussions at California law schools. She has also taught law school courses on legal research and writing.

Ms. Mitchell is licensed by the state of California as a real estate broker.  She is also a director of the South Asian Real Estate Association of America, and a member of the Silicon Valley Indian Professionals Association, the Indo American Chamber of Commerce, and the South Asian Bar Association.

She attended the American University, Washington College of Law (1988-1989), where she was a writer for the Administrative Law Journal and an intern for the U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Division, Torts Branch. She then attended the University of Pacific, McGeorge School of Law (1989-1992), where she was an editor of The Transnational Lawyer.

Representative Matters

A representative sampling of Ms. Mitchell’s litigation accomplishments includes:

• Dismissal of real estate brokers and agents in actions alleging failure to disclose and breach of contract
• Favorable resolution of insurance agency in action claiming fraud and breach of fiduciary duties
• Defense of law firm and attorney in action claiming legal malpractice
• Prosecution of aviation personal injury and wrongful death case resulting in a jury verdict favorable to client
• Favorable resolution on behalf of a large insurer of a complex coverage dispute with potential exposure of $60 million
• Representation of insurers in numerous other coverage and bad faith disputes on environmental and professional liability claims.

Publications

• Author, “Lien on Me:  The Doctrine of Equitable Subrogation," Sedgwick's Real Estate Newsletter, July 2010.