Mark Venardi was born in 1962 in Seattle, Washington. He was raised in Peoria, IL, a Midwest blue collar town. He enlisted in the United States Coast Guard and proudly served from 1980 through 1985. He spent the first two years on a sea going tug performing search and rescue and marine law enforcement from the Grand Banks to the Windward Passage aboard the Coast Guard Cutter Tamaroa, which was the Coast Guard vessel that performed the rescue in "The Perfect Storm." During this time period Mark sailed the Eastern seaboard in boats from 37 feet to 205 feet. He then served two years in Southeast Alaska aboard the Coast Guard Cutter Planetree, a 180 foot tender, which generally patrolled Southeast Alaska, but also included a voyage from Alaska to Hawaii and back. Mark spent his last year at Group Seattle performing search and rescue. Upon receiving an honorable discharge as an E-5 from the United States Coast Guard, Mark worked for approximately one year on the Chevron offshore oil platform Hermosa, off Point Conception, California.
It took Mark a bit to settle down in life for reasons that we will not elaborate on here, but it has been full steam ahead from the day Mark decided to become an attorney. Mark earned a B.A. in Political Science from the University of California at Berkeley in 1991 and his J.D. in 1994 from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law. During law school, Mark was the Co-Chairperson of the Moot Court Competition Committee, a recipient of the Outstanding Oral Argument Award, Snodgrass Competition, and a member of the University of San Francisco Maritime Law Review. He also served as a Judicial Extern to the Honorable Charles Legge, United States District Court Northern District of California. Mark graduated from law school in 1994, and was admitted to the California Bar in December 1994.
After graduating from law school Mark became an associate at Cox Wootton, Griffin & Hansen for four years before he joined Haight, Gardner Holland & Knight in 1998. Mark made Partner at the end of his 6th year of practice at Holland & Knight LLP, multinational law firm with over 1,000 attorneys. Since 2004 Mark has represented people instead of large corporations. Mark continued his rapid rise to the top after switching sides to represent deserving members of the community. Mark is one of a select few graduates of Gerry Spence's Trial Lawyers College which is the most demanding and prestigious trial lawyer training program in the country. In 2013, his peers recognized him as a Top 100 Trial Attorney as selected by the National Trial Lawyers, which is an invitation only organization, his peers recognized him as one of the Best Attorneys' in the Bay Area in 2012 and 2013 as featured in the San Francisco Chronicle and the Wall Street Journal, Superlawyers magazine selected Mark and recognized him with the prestigious Superlawyers award for Northern California in 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013 (only top 5 percent of attorneys are selected), his peers have awarded him with a Martindale Hubbell "AV" Preeminent Rating since 2004, and he has tried multiple cases to verdict and received multiple verdicts in excess of $1,000,000, which entitles him to be a member of Multi-Million Dollar Advocates Forum, an organization that is made up of less than 1 percent of U.S. lawyers.
Mark has been a noted speaker on a number of legal topics, including continuing legal education seminars.
Mark's other activities include having fun with and sharing adventures with his family including: boating, wakeboarding, wakesurfing, camping, road biking, mountain biking, surfing, sailing, fishing and scuba diving.
Areas of Practice
Bar Admissions
Education
Published Works
Classes/Seminars
Honors and Awards
Professional Associations and Memberships
Past Employment Positions
Veteran
