Sandy is an associate with Riley, Hewitt, Witte & Romano, P.C.  Her practice is primarily in civil litigation.  The subject matter of the cases she has worked on includes products liability, commercial, workers’ compensation, personal injury, construction, real estate and franchise.  Sandy has handled matters from pre-litigation through resolution either by settlement or hearing, and she has successfully appealed matters to the Workers’ Compensation Appeal Board, Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court, Superior Court and Supreme Court.  She has represented clients in federal and state courts,  workers’ compensation proceedings, arbitrations, hearings, mediations and depositions.

 

Sandy spent the 2002-2003 academic year working for the Hopkins-Nanjing Center, an academic joint venture between Johns Hopkins University and Nanjing University in Nanjing, P.R.C. While in college, Sandy earned a B.A. in Chinese studies, studied for two years at Fudan University in Shanghai, P.R.C., and worked the following two years both training staff for what is now the Portman Ritz-Carlton in Shanghai and managing the Shanghai office of a Canadian law firm specializing in Maritime law.  She is proficient in both spoken and written Mandarin Chinese and traveled, lived and worked in China for many years.

 

In 1988, Sandy graduated from the State University of New York at Albany, magna cum laude.  She received her Juris Doctor Degree in 2000 from Washington and Lee University School of Law in Lexington, Virginia.  During the 1999-2000 school years, Sandy participated in a judicial clerkship clinic working for two Virginia Circuit Court Judges in Roanoke and Rockbridge Counties.  As a judicial clerk, Sandy was able to observe a variety of civil and criminal matters.  She assisted in research in a number of areas, including zoning laws, evidentiary rules pertaining to medical experts, charitable immunity, constitutional challenges to Virginia  statutes, and the preparation of a CLE presentation on the ethics of witness  preparation.

 

Sandy regularly volunteers her time to perform pro bono services for the Neighborhood Legal Services Association representing plaintiffs in Protection from Abuse proceedings.  She has also performed pro bono work representing a refugee in an asylum application and interview as a volunteer for the Jewish Family & Children’s Services Pittsburgh Regional Immigrant Assistance Center.  She is a member of the American Bar Association, Pennsylvania Bar Association, West Virginia Bar Association and Allegheny County Bar Association. 

Education

• B.A. State University of New York at Albany, 1988

• J.D. Washington & Lee University, School of Law, Lexington, Virginia, 2000

 

Bar Admissions

• Pennsylvania, 2000

• U.S. District Court, Western District of Pennsylvania

• West Virginia 2012

• U.S. District Court, Southern District of West Virginia, 2012

 

EMAIL: salven@rhwrlaw.com