Mitchell received a Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service degree in 1990 from Georgetown University.

She received a Juris Doctor, magna cum laude, in 1996 from the George Washington University Law School, graduating Order of the Coif.

[1] She served as a law clerk to Judge Robert Harlan Henry of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit and later served as a senior law clerk to Judge Henry, from 1999 to 2010.

Since 2013, she has served as a United States magistrate judge in the Western District of Oklahoma.

[3][4] She received a hearing before the United States Senate Judiciary Committee on April 20, 2016.