Ms. Avitia’s practice includes business, real estate, insurance, healthcare and employment litigation, as well as regulatory investigations. Within the last two years, Ms. Avitia has second-chaired three trials, including two jury trials, and an arbitration. She has also represented clients at mediations, settlement conferences and depositions, and argued on behalf of clients at discovery and dispositive motion hearings.
Prior to joining Bannerman & Johnson, P.A, Ms. Avitia worked in the New York office of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP, where she focused on matters involving real estate, insurance, and general contract disputes before the New York state and federal courts, as well as white collar criminal defense matters before the Securities and Exchange Commission and various U.S. Attorney's Offices. In addition to working in New York, Ms. Avitia has also been an associate in the Albuquerque office of a large regional law firm, and served as an Assistant District Attorney in the 13th Judicial District Attorney's Office of New Mexico. While an A.D.A., Ms. Avitia prosecuted all crimes committed by juveniles in Valencia County and co-chaired a double-homicide trial involving the insanity defense.
A New Mexico native, Ms. Avitia graduated from Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas in 2003. In college, Ms. Avitia served as student body president and received the Trinity University Presidential Award of Excellence. After college, Ms. Avitia received her Juris Doctorate from Columbia Law School. While in law school, she was a James Kent Scholar her second and third years (an honor awarded to the top 3 to 8 percent of a class), President of the Latino Law Students Association, an in-court supervisor for the law school’s mediation program, and was awarded the Outstanding Clinical Student Award. In addition, while pursing her law degree, Ms. Avitia was an extern for then-Second Circuit Judge and now-United States Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, as well as an intern for the United States Attorney's Office, Southern District of New York, Criminal Division; New York Legal Aid Society’s Education Advocacy Project; and the Youth Law Center in San Francisco.
Ms. Avitia is admitted to practice before all state and federal courts in New Mexico, and she is an inactive member of the New York State Bar. She is a member of the 2010 class of CONNECT New Mexico, a leadership training program for young professionals, and a guest judge for the Metro Teen Court program in Albuquerque.
