Biography
Born in Connecticut and raised in San Francisco and San Diego, Elizabeth received a Bachelor of Arts degree in International Relations with a minor in Spanish from the University of San Diego in 1989. During her undergraduate years, she also spent a semester abroad at the Universidad de Salamanca in Salamanca, Spain.
While in college, Elizabeth's mother, Liz Bradley, founded Viviano & Bradley, a civil litigation law firm in San Diego. Elizabeth was the first employee of the firm, working in many different administrative positions throughout her college years. Upon graduation from the California Western School of Law, in San Diego in 1994, she continued on with the firm, focusing primarily on human resource issues as the firm quickly grew to 24 attorneys and approximately 55 employees. She was also very active in the firm's marketing efforts, working closely with Liz in marketing to and servicing the firm's Fortune 500 clients such as the Ford Motor Company, Wells Fargo Bank, and the Atlantic Richfield Company.
During her second year in law school, she won a judicial externship with the Hon. Don Work of the California Court of Appeal, where she drafted proposed opinions on civil and criminal matters. Elizabeth focused her elective studies on international law and trade. She was the first American law student to hold an internship at the Tijuana, Mexico office of Baker & McKenzie, where she worked with the managing partner focusing on foreign corporations doing business in Mexico.
In 1997, finding the need to expand her experience beyond the family firm, Elizabeth moved to Los Angeles. She continued her legal career working with clients primarily on entertainment and real estate matters, as well as providing freelance business litigation services to sole practitioners and small firms.
From 2000 to April 2005, Elizabeth worked with the Law Offices of Alan S. Gutman in Beverly Hills, California, representing individuals as well as small and large businesses in various complex business and entertainment litigation matters, including misappropriation of trade secrets, unfair business practices, contract disputes, fraud and negligent misrepresentation, breach of fiduciary duties, copyright infringement, etc. While handling all phases of litigation, Elizabeth was responsible for complex law and motion matters firm-wide. She also handled the firm's appeals to the California Court of Appeal and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
While in Los Angeles, she started pursuing a career in acting. After a few small roles in film, television and theater, and her first leading film role (opposite Latin superstar Osvaldo Laport), she was selected over thousands of attorneys across the country to compete against other young attorneys on David E. Kelley's The Law Firm (2005) on NBC.
After meeting Kelley, who became a television writer after practicing law, she was inspired to pursue professionally her lifelong passion of writing. She recently produced two shorts for _Alex Lane (IV)_, Within (2012) and Dishonestly Yours (2014), and co-produced the horror feature Last Girl (2013) for James Mercurio .
