Mark Anthony Velez

My name is Mark Velez and thank you for viewing my profile. I would like to take a moment to tell you about who I am and why I opened my own law practice. I was born and raised in Southern California. After completing high school, I applied at the Palos Verdes Estates Police Department as a cadet. After passing the testing and background phases, I started my passion of public service as a law enforcement profession in Palos Verdes Estates.

Over the past 32+ years, I worked in, and became an expert in, every aspect of policing including policies and procedures, investigations, internal affairs, use of force, special operations, and personnel and training. I have been fortunate enough to hold every position including Police Officer, Field Training Officer, Sergeant, Detective, Detective Sergeant, Captain, and Chief of Police. As an interesting side note, during this time, I also did a brief stint as Acting City Manager.

While working full time, I found a passion for learning and continued my schooling. I enrolled at El Camino College and majored in Criminal Justice. After earning enough credits, I transferred to the University of Redlands where I earned a Bachelor’s degree in Business Management. I then applied at California State University, Dominguez Hills where I earned a Master’s degree in Public Administration, graduating with honors. Shortly after graduating, I applied and was accepted to the PhD program at the University of Southern California focusing on Public Administration. After a two year break in schooling, went back to school at Southwestern Law School, graduated December 2011, and passed the California State Bar in February of 2012. I then opened myown law practice.

Over the past 18 years I have also taken great joy in teaching part time at several educational institutions. I started my teaching career at the University of Southern California where I taught statistics (I know, yuk) to undergraduate, graduate, and international graduate students. My teaching continued at California State University, Dominguez Hills where I taught many classes including Environmental Practice of Public Administration, Criminal Justice Statistics, Applied Statistics for Public Administration, and Analytic Decision Making, Terrorism and Extremism.

After 32+ years in law enforcement, I decided to retire. My passion for public service and helping people led me to continue practing criminal law on a full time basis. This was a natrual switch as I can and use my extensive law enforcement knowledge, education, relationships, and teaching experience to represent my clients in any criminal matter they face.

My background makes my representation unique. I not only know the law, but I also understand policies and procedures of law enforcement, and their culture. This helps me spot obvious and not so obvious signs where errors were made that are not readily visible to others. Finally, my teaching experience allows me to explain your charges, and the justice system process in a way that you will clearly understand what is happening every step of the way. I understand that being involved in a criminal matter can be very stressful and can affect all areas of your life, which why I take the worry out of the process so you can start living again.

In my free time, I enjoy spending my time with my family and our dog Chance. My favorite hobby is travelling to unique places and engaging in different cultures. I feel it’s important to learn about other people and cultures. Some of the places I have traveled include: Rwanda, Uganda, Tibet, Nepal, Japan, Greece, Mexico, Canada, France, England, Ireland, Panama, Egypt, and Israel.