Hensley Kim & Holzer has added patent attorney Chirag Patel to the firm. Patel received a B.E. in electrical engineering from Gujarat University in India in 1990 and got his law degree from Georgetown University Law Center in 2002.

Chirag Patel PR Release

By Matt Masich, LAW WEEK COLORADO
DENVER — The Colorado Court of Appeals ruled Thursday that law firm Hogan & Hartson didn’t use bait-and-switch tactics to trick General Steel Corp. into hiring one of its attorneys. The court did allow a breach of contract lawsuit against Hogan & Hartson to go forward.
Colorado-based General Steel in 2004 hired renowned white-collar defense attorney Ty Cobb, then of Hogan & Hartson’s Denver office, to defend the company against litigation brought by the Colorado attorney general’s office. But Cobb moved to the firm’s Washington, D.C. office two months later, leaving another attorney from the Denver office to work on the case.
General Steel dismissed the firm as counsel after spending about $1 million in legal fees and later settled with the state for $4.5 million. The company sued Hogan & Hartson for violating the Colorado Consumer Protection Act by engaging in the “deceptive trade practice” of “bait-and-switch advertising,” breach of contract and fee disputes.
Denver District Judge Herbert Stern sent the fee dispute to arbitration and dismissed the other CCPA and breach of contract claims. The Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal of the CCPA claim but sent the breach of contract issue back to the trial court.
The parties in the appeal were represented by an all-star cast of Denver attorneys. Rothgerber Johnson & Lyons’ Jim Lyons and Hilary Wells represented Ty Cobb; Hal Haddon, Saskia Jordan and Ty Gee of Haddon Morgan & Foreman represented Hogan & Hartson; Davis Graham & Stubbs’ Andrew Low, Victoria Johnson and Terry Miller represented General Steel.

09CA0252

By Matt Masich, LAW WEEK COLORADO
DENVER — The Colorado Court of Appeals ordered a new trial for Martin Novotny after ruling Thursday that the trial court erred by not dismissing a prospective juror who worked for the attorney general’s office. Novotny was in 2006 convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison for stabbing to death ex-girlfriend Ana Elisa Toledo.
During jury selection before the trial, Denver District Judge Daniel Hoffman asked prospective jurors if any of them worked for a law enforcement agency. A man identified as J.D. replied that he worked in the state attorney general’s office with responsibility for representing the Department of Corrections.
Novotny’s defense attorney challenged J.D. for cause on the grounds that he worked for a law enforcement agency. Hoffman denied the challenge, commenting that “the attorney general does a whole bunch of things besides law enforcement” and “this guy works in an area that’s not law enforcement.”
Defense counsel used its last peremptory challenge to block J.D. from getting onto the jury. The jury went on to convict Novotny of premeditated murder. But that conviction was reversed Thursday when a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals found that Hoffman erred in denying Novotny’s challenge for cause. The attorney general’s office, the panel ruled, is indeed a law enforcement agency.
“Because defendant [Novotny] used a peremptory challenge to remove J.D. and then exhausted his remaining peremptory challenges, we must reverse the judgment of conviction and remand for a new trial,” wrote Judge John Webb in the panel’s opinion, with Judge Diana Terry concurring.
Judge Sean Connelly wrote a special concurrence to point out the “significant social costs” of the Colorado rule requiring new trials in cases like this. Federal courts and most state courts would find the legal error in this case to be harmless based on the 2000 U.S. Supreme Court U.S. v. Martinez-Salazar ruling, Connelly wrote, while the Colorado Supreme Court has “thus far” not adopted that rule.
“Leading commentators agree an otherwise fair conviction should not be reversed simply because the trial judge erroneously denied a for-cause challenge to a prospective juror later removed with a peremptory challenge,” he wrote.
Karen Mahlman Gerash of the state public defender’s office represented Novotny on appeal; Rebecca Adams of the attorney general’s office represented the state.

06CA2204

U.S. District Judge John Kane is expected to rule today whether to put a halt to construction at Denver’s Union Station. Kane heard nearly six hours of testimony Wednesday on the pros and cons of issuing a temporary restraining order that would block FasTracks transit construction at Union Station, as reported by the Denver Post.

Federal prosecutors brought charges Wednesday against a Lafayette-based company that allegedly sold military optical prisms and technical data to Turkey, South Korea, China and Russia without getting approval from the U.S. State Department. U.S. Attorney for Colorado David Gaouette accuses Rocky Mountain Instrument Co. of exporting the products without getting the necessary license to do so. Prisms and other military items on the U. S. Munitions List of military defense products may not be sold to foreign countries. Rocky Mountain Instrument Co. allegedly sold the banned goods between April 1, 2005, and Oct. 11, 2007. Prosecutors are seeking to recover $1 million that the company is believed to have made from the sales, as well as $1 million in fines. Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Kirsch is prosecuting the case.

Read the U.S. attorney’s press release:
March 17

The Harris Law Firm recently opened a new office in Fort Collins. An open house event will be held on March 28 from 4-6 p.m.

Denver Family Law Firm Expands

By Don Knox, LAW WEEK COLORADO
DENVER — Some members of the House Business Affairs & Labor Committee are advocating a go-slower approach on moving the state’s e-access and e-filing system from a private vendor to the Colorado Judicial Department, although no vote was taken at a meeting today and no recommendation was made.
The panel, chaired by Rep. Joe Rice, D-Littleton, discussed a draft letter, published below, requesting that consideration of the switch be heard by the House Judiciary Committee, which considers legislation affecting the department.
The House Business panel was acting in its capacity overseeing the Governor’s Office of Information Technology, even though there’s a separation-of-powers issue; OIT is an executive branch agency, while the judicial department falls within the Judicial Branch. The letter is addressed to the leadership of the House of Representatives as well as members of the Joint Budget Committee.
Republican Reps. Larry Liston and Amy Stephens voiced the most concern about switching the systems without a fuller technological review, joined by Democratic Rep. Karen Middleton. Vice Chair Rep. Sara Gagliardi, a Democrat, favored making the transition sooner rather than later. Other representatives either weren’t present or didn’t voice a strong opinion one way or the other.
Some members of the panel suggested some language tweaks, but the overall tenor of the letter will remain. Individual members still have to sign off on it, however.
The impact of a possible delay couldn’t immediately be assessed. The judicial department has already built a new system to handle electronic access to dockets and other records, but can’t hire more staff without legislative approval. Speaking to Law Week following the hearing, department legislative liaison Sherry Stwalley said she didn’t know what the impact of a delay would be.
Other companies affected by the project either couldn’t be reached or declined comment. The companies include LexisNexis, which currently provides the services under contract to the judicial department, and information resellers Acxiom Corp. of Little Rock, Ark., and Boulder-based BIS. The lobbyist for Pasadena, Calif.-based Courthouse News Service, which wants the department to take over the system, citing high access costs, declined to comment. All of the companies except Acxiom are represented by lobbyists.

Contract ending
LexisNexis’ contract to provide electronic access services to the state ends June 30, and the state was set to take over the position of providing the service has been twice extended, and the department would have to issue a new RFP and consider new vendors to continue the service beyond that date.
What’s not known is if judicial department will move forward with providing e-access if the General Assembly decides against giving it employees representing 19 full-time equivalents it has requested to run the e-access system and to build a replacement for the e-filing system (the Lexis contract for which expires next year).
The e-access system provides real-time electronic access to court records that reflect whether people have been convicted or crimes or have been sued. It’s primarily used by background-screening companies, although attorneys do access the records.
The state’s e-filing system is almost exclusively used by attorneys. It allows them to file case pleadings and motions electronically, for a fee, without the hassle of having to go to the courthouse. Lexis gets the bulk of the money, with a cost-recovery fee being collected by the state.

House Biz

Prosecutors want former Qwest CEO Joe Nacchio to attend his resentencing on June 24, despite being waived from his right to do so by his attorneys, the Denver Post reports. Assistant U.S. attorney Kevin Traskos wrote in a court document that Nacchio’s attendance would achieve the goal of “having personally receive the official expression of the condemnation of his conduct, showing confidence in the justness of the sentence, promoting respect for the law, promoting deterrence and treating victims fairly.”

By Matt Masich, LAW WEEK COLORADO
Bill Martinez, nominated last month to one of two open judgeships on Colorado’s federal trial court, appeared before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee last week in Washington, D.C. The committee didn’t vote on his nomination. Martinez needs approval from the committee and the full Senate before he can be sworn in as a judge.
Colorado’s Sens. Michael Bennet and Mark Udall gave Martinez glowing introductions.
“Bill was not born with great privilege,” Udall said. “He came to the United States as an immigrant child from Mexico City and literally worked his way through college and toward a career in the law.
As a lawyer, Udall said, Martinez’ “focus has really been representing those with the least amount of power in our society.”
The committee’s ranking member, Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, gave Martinez a perfunctory grilling about his work with the ACLU of Colorado. Sessions, who’s often at odds with the ACLU, asked whether Martinez agrees with the organization’s stance that capital punishment is “cruel and unusual.” [Watch it on video here, starting at 83:00]
“What I would agree with as a district judge,” Martinez replied, “is that the U.S. Supreme Cout has ruled that capital punishment doesn’t violate the Eighth Amendment, except in narrow circumstances that have been carved out in recent years. So I think what is material and important is what my view would be as a sitting federal district judge, something that would be quite different from my views as a personal citizen or an advocate or litigant and member of the ACLU.”
Sessions pressed the issue, asking Martinez to share his personal view on whether capital punishment is unconstitutional. Martinez said he thinks “that day may come” when U.S. Supreme Court outlaws the death penalty, but that as a judge, he will follow the current interpretation. He also said he would not have a problem imposing the death penalty in court.
Martinez, a labor lawyer with McNamara Roseman Martinez & Kazmierski in Denver, brought a cheering section with him to Washington, including wife Judy Shlay; daughters Erica and Laura; parents Guillermo and Mary Martinez; and brothers Salvador Martinez and Al Martinez.

The Colorado Supreme Court this week declined to review a lower court’s ruling saying a Colorado district attorney acted properly in refusing to take the case of a woman who claimed she was raped, the Associated Press reports. The woman alleges she was raped by two men in 2000, one of whom was later tied to the University of Colorado football team sex scandal a year later. The case against her alleged attackers was dropped when she refused to testify, but she later pressed prosecutors to renew the case. The Colorado Court of Appeals last year affirmed 18th Judicial District Attorney Carol Chambers’ decision not to prosecute the case. Justice Gregory Hobbs was the only member of the high court who voted to hear the case, to consider “[w]hether the court of appeals erred in overturning the district court’s decision ordering prosecution and the appointment of a special prosecutor….”