Mitzi G. Burkitt
Paralegal
Mitzi is a 30-year veteran of the paralegal profession and has more than 25 years’ experience in civil and complex commercial litigation.
Currently she is the lead paralegal for Plaintiffs in litigation pending in the U. S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri. The lawsuit involves federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) claims, as well as various fraud and breach of fudiciary duty claims against 45 defendants related to the death care industry. Mitzi has significant experience in coordinating collection, processing and review of large volumes of documents and electronic data, and currently manages a staff of document review attorneys and paralegals dedicated to the Missouri case.
Prior to working on her current assignment, Mitzi held the lead paralegal role in the defense of a large oil & gas class action lawsuit in Oklahoma. She was also part of the defense team representing the University of Colorado in a highly publicized Title IX action brought by former University students who claimed they were sexually assaulted by University football players. On the plaintiff side, Mitzi was the lead paralegal on the winning team in a federal trademark infringement case that resulted in a multi-million dollar jury verdict in Colorado, following a three-week trial several years ago. Prior to that, she headed up the paralegal team in a series of state consumer fraud class actions brought against a public utility in seven mid-western and western states. She also has experience managing complex medical and legal malpractice cases, and products liability.
Mitzi has lectured on managing complex litigation on behalf of the Institute for Paralegal Education, and on electronic court filings at Denver University Law School. She currently volunteers for a legal clinic sponsored by Family Tree, assisting with kinship adoptions, and has previously served on a task force of the Colorado Lawyers Committee to study effective legal representation for the mentally ill in Colorado’s criminal system. She is also a past newsletter editor of the Rocky Mountain Paralegal Association.
Among the skills Mitzi enjoys most as a paralegal are finding “needles in haystacks”, using investigative tools to trace complex financial transactions, and developing innovative and efficient ways to manage large volumes of documents and other evidence. She also enjoys working closely with the graphic design department in creating demonstrative aids for trial presentation. Mitzi works closely with information technology experts, clients, attorneys and staff in managing her assigned cases, and sees paralegals as the “glue that holds the team together”.
Before joining Reilly Pozner, she was the head paralegal in the Denver office of McKenna & Cuneo, L.L.P., a 275-attorney international firm.
“I have always been very interested in graphic design and photography. Here at the firm, I enjoy working closely with the graphic design department in creating the outstanding courtroom visuals we prepare for our clients. Outside the firm, I work on my digital photography skills—and was recently the official photographer at a family wedding. Some of my photos appear on the firm’s ‘art wall’, where lawyers and staff are invited to post their creative efforts.”