LAW WEEK COLORADO

DENVER – The Denver office of national employment law firm Ogletree Deakins Nash Smoak & Stewart announced the addition of four immigration attorneys from regional law firm Holland & Hart on Wednesday.

Angelica Ochoa and Christopher Thomas joined the law firm as shareholders. Ochoa has a broad employment law practice with a specialization in obtaining non-immigrant work visas and employment-based immigrant visas for management, professionals and specialized skills employees. She is a 2001 graduate from the University of Michigan Law School. Thomas focuses his practice on employment immigration law. He also serves on the boards of the Latin American Research and Service Agency and the Denver chapter of religious conviction organization J. Reuben Clark Law Society. Thomas received his juris doctor from Tulane University in 1997.

John Combs, who joined as of counsel, has a number of years of experience in employment based permanent residency applications with a specialization in the initial labor certification process. He learned his law degree from the University of Idaho in 1983.

Jocelyn Campanaro, who worked in Holland & Hart’s Washington D.C. and Denver offices, is an associate with a practice focused on complex commercial litigation and labor and employment disputes. She’s also specialized in representing professional sports teams and athletes on immigration matters, including players in the National Hockey League, a leading team in the Central Hockey League, World Champion cutting horse riders and competitors in the equine industry.

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LAW WEEK COLORADO

Irvin (Gene) Branch has joined the Perkins Coie’s Denver office as a partner. Branch, formerly with Townsend and Townsend and Crew, will be part of the firm’s Intellectual Property practice.

Branch has represented several large integrated financial services companies including Western Union and the United Services Automobile Association.

Branch is a contributor to the Colorado School of Mines’ 8th Continent Project, an organization founded for the purpose of commercializing space-derived technologies. In addition to being a licensed attorney, he also is licensed as a professional engineer in Colorado.

Branch’s addition to the Denver office comes only a few months after the firm announced the addition of M&A attorney Nate Ford, and two other attorneys in the business group, who joined from Faegre & Benson. The firm also recently announced that Markus Funk, a former Assistant U.S. attorney in Chicago, will be joining the Denver office in the fall.

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LAW WEEK COLORADO

DENVER – Medical malpractice litigator George E. McLaughlin joined Greenwood Village-based trial law firm Burg Simpson Eldredge Hersh & Jardine as special counsel.

“I am joining a firm with a first-rate reputation for litigation and an impressive track record that is the envy of many,” McLaughlin said in a press release announcing the appointment.

McLaughlin was a name partner with Denver law firm McDermott Hansen & McLaughlin, now McDermott & McDermott. He was a former municipal judge in Wheeling, W. Va., and is a member of a number of trial lawyer organizations in Colorado and West Virginia.

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Two partners and two associates with experience in health care law have joined the Denver office of Washington, D.C.-based Patton Boggs, the Denver Business Journal reports.

Veteran health care lawyer Stephen Nash and litigator Sven Collins, along with associates Mimi Hu and Michi Tsuda, previously worked for Holme Roberts & Owen. All started working at Patton Boggs in the past month.

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Jeffrey A. Sherman has returned to the Faegre & Benson’s Denver office from Holland & Hart to continue his corporate and public securities practice.

Michael McCarthy, a partner in the Denver office and a member of the firm’s management committee, says Faegre & Benson is delighted to welcome Sherman back. “The extensive experience Jeff brings to our top-ranked corporate practice is a win for both our firm and our clients. His reputation and leadership in the community provides substantial value to our Denver and Boulder offices,” says McCarthy.

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Sean Connelly

LAW WEEK COLORADO

DENVER — Colorado Court of Appeals Judge Sean Connelly will rejoin Denver’s Reilly Pozner, his old firm, when he steps down from the bench in January with plans to open a new office in Washington, D.C.

Dan Reilly and Larry Pozner, Connelly’s once and future law partners, said they supported his move to the bench while holding out hope that he’d return to the firm someday.

“We never filled his office,” Reilly said. “We always said, ‘If you ever want to get back to private practice, you’re always welcome here.’”

“We cherished working with Sean,” Pozner said. “He is an incredible intellect and we understood that he might go to the bench, but we always had a great deal of fun having Sean as a major part of the firm.”

Connelly will split time between Denver and Washington, D.C. His practice will focus on federal civil and criminal appeals, complex civil litigation and while collar criminal defense.

The firm’s expansion to Washington, D.C. was prompted both by Connelly’s desire to return to his legal roots (he was a Department of Justice lawyer there before moving to Denver) and to better serve the firm’s East Coast clients, which include Ingersoll Rand, Lehman Brothers and AIG.

Gov. Bill Ritter in 2008 appointed Connelly to the Court of Appeals. Connelly opted not to stand in the November retention election, allowing his term to expire in January.

Connelly originally moved to Denver more than a decade ago as part of the prosecution team in the Oklahoma City bombing trial and appeal process. He joined Reilly Pozner in 2002, and in 2006 became a named partner, with the firm restyling itself Reilly Pozner & Connelly. His named was dropped when he joined the bench and the firm will remain Reilly Pozner when he returns.

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Tracy Gray has joined Jacobs Chase Frick Kleinkopf & Kelley as partner.

Gray, a 19-year veteran, advises clients on a wide range of intellectual property and privacy matters

“Tracy brings a tremendous wealth of IP experience, as well as a focus on the growing role of new technologies and web-based business practices in today’s world,” Managing Partner Paul Jacobs said.

After receiving her undergraduate degree from Brown University, Gray attended USC Law School. Before joining Jacobs Chase, she practiced at Hogan & Hartson LLP in Colorado, and Pillsbury, Madison & Sutro LLP in Los Angeles.

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Scott Barker, Dan Frost

LAW WEEK COLORADO

DENVER — Two prominent Holland & Hart partners are leaving the firm. Scott Barker, chair of the firm’s litigation department, will start July 1 at Wheeler Trigg O’Donnell. Dan Frost, a veteran construction claims and transactions attorney, will start Monday at Snell & Wilmer.

The departures were separately confirmed Friday by the attorneys’ new firms, in response to Law Week inquiries.

Barker, a Top 10 “Colorado Super Lawyer” and member of the prestigious American College of Trial Lawyers, will leave Holland & Hart after three decades.

“Both Holland & Hart and Wheeler Trigg O’Donnell are, in my estimation, the two best litigation firms in the state of Colorado, or for that matter, in the region,” Barker said, declining all other comment other than to say he is “delighted to be associated with Holland & Hart, and looking forward to working at Wheeler Trigg O’Donnell.”

Frost, who has a significant construction practice, has worked at Denver firms since graduating from law school in 1978. He practiced at Fairfield and Woods before moving 11 years ago to Holland & Hart. Frost said his move to Snell & Wilmer is “an opportunity to help them build their Denver practice, and I’m excited about that.”

Frost said details of his biggest recent projects are confidential, but they include representation of an international gold mining company in a transaction in Mexico; completing complex railway oil-gathering contracts for an oil and gas company that owns fields in North Dakota; and litigation involving a claim on a large power plant.

“I have so much respect for the firm I’m leaving,” Frost said. “I’m leaving a lot of great friends and a good firm. It’s been a great 11 years, but I have this opportunity and this challenge that I’m really looking forward to meeting.”

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Chris Hazlitt, Neal Cohen and James Sawtelle (L-R) joined HRO from Faegre & Benson on Tuesday.

LAW WEEK COLORADO

DENVER — Holme Roberts & Owen announced Tuesday it has hired three partners from Faegre & Benson. Chris Hazlitt and Neal Cohen come from Faegre’s Boulder office, where Hazlitt had been executive partner. Jim Sawtelle comes from Faegre’s Denver office.

Hazlitt is a corporate attorney who handles mergers and acquisitions for technology and natural foods companies, as well as those in the outdoor industry. Cohen is a litigator who handles class actions, intellectual property and securities cases. Sawtelle is a litigator who has been lead counsel in more than 30 jury trials and more than 15 appeals.

“Having three partners of this caliber join HRO, from an equally prestigious firm, is indicative of HRO’s expansion in Colorado, and of the firm as a whole,” said Ken Lund, HRO managing partner.

The announcement comes less than a month after Perkins Coie’s Denver office took on three other lateral partners from Faegre & Benson: Nate Ford, Jeffrey Beuche and Peter Kinsella. Ford and Beuche joined the Perkins Coie’s corporate governance and transactions practice. Kinsella joined the licensing and technology practice.

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DENVER — Attorneys Michael A. Sandstrum and John J. Clasby recently joined Broomfield firm Donelson Ciancio & Goodwin.

Sandstrum, who had been with Fleishman & Shapiro until earlier this year, joins as special counsel for the firm’s litigation group, specializing in construction, real estate, and intellectual property litigation; contract disputes; business torts; and personal injury matters. Clasby, a former Hogan & Hartson associate who was most recently with the office of the Attorney General for the District of Columbia, joins as an associate for the litigation group, specializing in general civil, commercial and criminal litigation.

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