LAW WEEK COLORADO

DENVER – Two Qwest attorneys were accepted into the first Latina Executive Leadership Program, a joint initiative from the Hispanic National Bar Association and Association of Corporate Counsel designed to address challenges unique to Latina lawyers.

Gina Casias and Meshach Rhoades will be part of an estimated 50 Latina HNBA members from the private sector and several chief legal officers collaborating on financial and case management education while benefitting from networking opportunities. Also in the program is Faegre & Benson Partner Regina Rodriguez, reported in Law Week Online on Aug. 30.

Casias is corporate counsel at Qwest and has practice labor and employment law there for almost ten years and is actively involved in Denver youth nonprofit La Raza Youth as a mentor. Rhoades, a senior attorney, practices telecommunications litigation. She is immediate past president of the Colorado Hispanic Bar Association and a current regional president of the HNBA.

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LAW WEEK COLORADO

The Colorado Trial Lawyers Association, the state’s largest specialty bar association, announced the election of Peter Koclanes to the position of president.

Koclanes is a member of Sherman & Howard. He focuses on commercial, class action, securities, corporate governance, natural resources and intellectual property litigation.

Other newly elected CTLA officers include Carrie Frank from Klein | Frank in Boulder, president-elect; James Croshal, attorney at law in Pueblo, vice president; Michael Ogborn from Ogborn, Summerlin & Ogborn in Denver, secretary; and Michael Mihm from Starrs Mihm in Denver, as treasurer.

Koclanes has been an active CTLA member for the 14 years. CTLA has named Koclanes volunteer of the year three times.

According to the association, he often speaks at continuing legal education seminars sponsored by CTLA and the Colorado Bar Association. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Chemical and Petroleum-Refining Engineering from the Colorado School of Mines and a Juris Doctor from George Washington University Law School.

CTLA’s newly elected officers serve one-year terms.

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LAW WEEK COLORADO

The Colorado Bar Association’s Casemaker legal-research system was down briefly today in the wake of a server change.

By mid-morning, the issue had been corrected, and Colorado users were able to access the system through a different portal. “They’ve got a back door into it now,” said Reba Nance, the bar association’s director of law practice management.

The bar association advised: “Until the problem has been completely resolved, you can access Casemaker by clicking here. There is no login necessary. This link will drop you into the ‘Ohio Library.’ Simply click on the ‘State Libraries’ tab in the dark blue navigation bar and choose ‘Colorado.’”

Casemaker is operated by a private Ohio company, LawWriter Inc. Casemaker’s Colorado library includes statutes, case law, administrative code, attorney general opinions, and most relevant materials needed for legal research. The service is a competitor to WestLaw and Lexis, but is organized differently, Nance said. All Colorado bar association members have access to the service at no additional charge.

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LAW WEEK COLORADO

The Colorado Bar Association and several other nonprofits on Wednesday rolled out a public-service advertising campaign encouraging voters to “know their judges” before voting on their retentions in the fall election.

The campaign, which consists of a website and a public-service announcement intended for broadcast TV stations, doesn’t offer previously unavailable information about the judges. But it highlights performance evaluations released Tuesday and encourages voters to read those as well as the voter “blue book” distributed by the state.

The other sponsors are the University of Denver’s Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System, the Colorado Judicial Institute and the League of Women Voters of Colorado.

The PSA features outdoor scenes of voters saying, among other things, “I vote for them,” “I don’t know who these people are,” “I skip them,” “I guess” and “I think who are these people?”

A narrator intones, “Be informed, get the facts at knowyourjudge.com.”

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LAW WEEK COLORADO

Kathleen M. Schoen, the director of the Colorado Bar Association’s local bar relations and access to justice department, has been named a 2010 recipient of the Sharon Corbitt Award.

Schoen will be honored at 10 a.m. Aug. 6 in the offices of Arnold & Porter in San Francisco.

The award is named for the late former chair of the ABA Family Law Section and a member of the Commission on Domestic Violence.

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Significantly boosting its Las Vegas litigation presence, Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck has snagged three top Vegas commercial litigation attorneys from Jones Vargas: Kirk B. Lenhard, previously co-chair of Jones Vargas’ litigation group; Tamara Beatty Peterson, and Clark V. Vellis, J.D. Journal writes.

With them, they will bring associates Adam K. Bult and Anthony J. DiRaimondo.

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LAW WEEK COLORADO

Minneapolis-based intellectual property law firm Merchant & Gould, which has a Denver office, named partner Brian Batzli as its new CEO and managing partner effective Jan. 1. Batzli succeeds D. Randall King, who presided over the firm’s “significant growth and success” for more than a decade.

Batzli has been with the firm since 1987 and has served several terms on the firm’s three member executive committee. King, who has served as CEO since 1997 but has been with the firm since 1976, will become the firm’s chairman

“In Randy’s tenure as CEO and Managing Director, Merchant & Gould has added offices in Atlanta, Denver, Knoxville, Madison, New York, Omaha, Seattle and Washington, D.C., while successfully nurturing and growing the firm’s robust client roster,” said John Gould, who has been with the firm since 1954 and has had a considerable role in the growth of Merchant & Gould. “He has made significant contributions molding our strong reputation as one of the nation’s leading IP firms.”

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LAW WEEK COLORADO

The Colorado Defense Lawyers Association announced Monday that Dawn Kubik of Jones Waters & Geislinger, Jessica Stieber of McConaughy & Sarkissian, Jody Haskins of White & Steele and David McLain of Higgins Hopkins McLain & Roswell have joined the association’s board.

The four appointments fill recently vacated seats.

The CDLA represents lawyers involved in the defense of civil litigation.

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LAW WEEK COLORADO

An electronic court records system launched Thursday by the Colorado Judicial Department saw improved performance Friday, the State Court Administrator’s Office said this week.

The Public Access System, or PAS, previously operated under contract by information giant LexisNexis, served 52,123 searches during its first two days. One vendor indicated system slowness with some searches taking 12 seconds to perform. But the state reported improved response times later Friday.

“At the end of the day Friday, response time ranged from 1 to 5 seconds depending on the nature of the search. Load balancing will probably be ongoing for the next several weeks,” said Jon Sarche, spokesman.

A total of 33,174 (or 64 percent) of the searches were free searches by governmental agencies; 18,989 (or 36 percent) were from third-party information resellers, Sarche said.

The state won the right to create its own system after a two-year battle at the General Assembly. Like LexisNexis, the state sells searches to vendors — BIS Inc. and Acxiom Identity Solutions — who served the private market directly. The searches cost as little as $1.75 wholesale and are marked up to as high as $6.

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LAW WEEK COLORADO

Public policy law firm Patton Boggs, which has a Denver office, will acquire the Breaux-Lott Leadership Group, another public policy firm. Breaux-Lott is a lobbying boutique that provides what it terms “bipartisan leadership” to solve client problems.

The acquisition brings former Louisiana Democratic Sen. John Breaux and former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss.to the firm’s Washington office as special senior counsel with their sons, John Breaux Jr. and Chester Trent Lott, Jr.; three public policy advisers; and three staff members. This helps complete Patton Boggs’ plan to expand nationwide. The Denver office of the firm has approximately 40 attorneys.

“This acquisition is a strategic coup and a cornerstone for our bipartisan growth,” said Thomas Hale Boggs Jr., chairman of Patton Boggs.

Patton Boggs corrals legislative wor while expanding its footprint in major regulatory areas. Over the past year, the firm has added powerhouses such as former FCC Chairman Kevin Martin; Suedeen Kelly, a former commissioner with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission; and Dick Thompson, a veteran in the pharmaceutical and food and drug sectors, over the past year.