Faculty of Federal Advocates
P.O. Box 12025
Denver CO 80212-0025
Administrator:
Patricia Murphy
pmurphyffa@aol.com
Copyright © 2004-2009
Faculty of Federal Advocates
Faculty of Federal Advocates Newsletter
May 2008 Volume 10, Number 1 Table of Contents:
President's
Message Of the 8,000 or so attorneys licensed to practice in the District of Colorado, less than 10% (650) make the choice to belong to the Faculty of Federal Advocates (“FFA”). It should be more. This organization, inspired 10 years ago by Judge Matsch, exists to increase the competency of all attorneys practicing in the District and to serve as a liaison between the bench and bar. To that end, the FFA organizes and hosts some of the best CLE’s around. We enjoy and appreciate the support of the District’s judges and magistrates in putting on these educational seminars. The FFA’s “Roundtable” (to be held this year on November 1, 2008) is a unique opportunity to meet and learn from all our judges in small groups. The Faculty also serves another important role. We serve those civil clients who cannot afford counsel, and at the same time assist the courts and provide mentoring training to younger attorneys wanting federal court experience. If you’re interested, contact Ed Butler, Esq., the District's Legal Officer for the Court’s “Counsel/Co-Counsel program,” (303) 335-2043 or email: Edward_Butler@cod.uscourts.gov. We continue to need interested attorneys, for both “counsel” [mentor] and “co-counsel” [mentee] roles. All of us serve the Court. It’s one of the privileges and responsibilities of admission, and we continue to need your participation for the Counsel/Co-Counsel program. We also need and want your help in suggesting topics for our “brown bag luncheon” CLE’s as well as Roundtable discussion topics. Please contact the Faculty’s administrator, Patricia Murphy, with your ideas. She can be reached at pmurphyffa@aol.com. And finally, note that Congress has authorized seven active District Court judges. Our court is short three, with the passing of Judge Figa, and the taking of Senior Judge status by Judges Babcock and Miller. And a quick “geography” note. The “new and improved” Byron Rogers Courthouse now houses the courtrooms and chambers of Senior Judge Babcock, Magistrate Judge Hegarty and will soon be the new location of Judge Miller and his courtroom. Adjust your parking accordingly. Make sure your fellow District of Colorado attorneys have joined the FFA. They owe it to themselves. They’ll be the better attorney for it. We’re honored to have a strong and enthusiastic Board of Directors who serve the mission of the Faculty and welcome your suggestions for how to better serve our membership and Court. We invite you to check out the FFA webpage at www.facultyfederaladvocates.org. Put it on your “favorites” list. It’s a great resource. The Faculty has also teamed up with “Our Courts,” a
non-partisan Colorado Bar And last, but most importantly, the Faculty honors the memory and legacy of the late Judge Phil Figa. He is greatly missed. Judge
Wiley Daniel’s CLE on Top Ten Do’s and Don’ts
in Trial On September 14, 2007 Judge Wiley Y. Daniel presented at a Faculty of Federal Advocates Brown Bag at the United States District Courthouse. Judge Daniel and his topic, “Top 10s Do’s and Don’ts in Trial,” attracted the largest crowd ever at a FFA Brown Bag. Judge Daniel gave an energetic and enlightening talk, earning rave reviews from all in attendance. While the title of Judge Daniel’s talk promised ten trial advocacy pointers, in fact he delivered far more than that, covering a variety of subjects. A nutshell the summary of Judge Daniel’s talk—minus his many humorous and edifying anecdotes—is as follows:
Congratulations to the University of Denver’s Civil Rights Clinic The Faculty of Federal Advocates congratulates the students of DU’s Civil Rights Clinic and their faculty supervisor, Prof. Laura Rovner, for their victory on behalf of Mark Jordan, a federal prisoner challenging a regulation prohibiting inmates from acting as reporters or publishing under a byline. Mr. Jordan connected with the Clinic through the FFA’s counsel/co-counsel program. About The Case Jordan v. Pugh was filed by plaintiff Mark Jordan in 2002. Mr. Jordan, an inmate at the ADX facility in Florence, Colorado, had published two bylined articles in Off! Magazine, a publication of an off-campus prisoner rights group at SUNY Binghamton. As a result, he was disciplined pursuant to a prison regulation that prohibits an inmate from “acting as a reporter” or “publishing under a byline.” 28 C.F.R. § 540.20(b). Mr. Jordan’s complaint asserted both facial and as-applied challenges to the regulation. Following a number of dispositive motions and an appeal to the Tenth Circuit, only Mr. Jordan’s facial challenge remained to be tried. In late 2005, Mr. Jordan requested that the Court assist him in finding representation, and in April 2006, the Clinic was appointed as his counsel. Prof. Rovner and students Michelle Young, Jack Hobaugh, and Don Bounds began working on the case. Although closely supervised by Prof. Rovner, the students were responsible for litigating the case. They made repeated trips to the ADX facility to meet with Mr. Jordan and to work with him to prepare the case. The students briefed and argued motions and took and defended depositions. Trial preparation consumed much of the three students’ last semester of law school, including vacations, and -- with a May 29 trial date looming -- brought them back to the Clinic to resume work on their graduation day. The case was tried to the Court before Judge Marcia Krieger. The students made the opening and closing arguments, and responded to the defendants’ Rule 52 motion following the plaintiff’s case-in-chief. They also examined Mr. Jordan -- present by video connection to the prison -- and plaintiff’s experts and cross-examined defense witnesses. Prof. Rovner sat with and advised the students at counsel table but did not take a speaking role at trial. Following the three-day trial, Judge Krieger took the matter under advisement. On August 9, she handed down her decision, holding that the regulation was overbroad in violation of the First Amendment. See Jordan v. Pugh, --- F. Supp. 2d ---, 2007 WL 2288189 (D. Colo. 2007). Prof. Rovner expressed appreciation for both the Court and the Assistant U.S. Attorneys against whom the students litigated. “The students were treated as attorneys, and were able to gain the rare educational experience of taking a case all the way to trial,” she said. About the Clinic The Civil Rights Clinic at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law was founded in 2004 when Prof. Rovner joined the faculty. Although clinical education has a long history at DU -- marking its 100th anniversary in 2004 -- previous clinics had practiced only in Colorado’s state courts. After she arrived, Prof. Rovner approached the judges of the United States District Court for the District of Colorado to implement a student practice rule, permitting students to represent clients before that Court under the supervision of clinical faculty. (Prof. Rovner previously wrote for this Newsletter introducing the Clinic and the student practice rule.) Since then, students in the Civil Rights Clinic have represented clients in a number of cases before the federal court here and have worked on cases addressing fair housing, employment discrimination, and prisoner civil rights. Welcome
to Magistrate Judge Kristen Mix Colorado’s recently appointed United States Magistrate Judge, Kristen Mix, hails from Buffalo, New York. The daughter of two lawyers, she came to Colorado in 1980, fresh out of college, to teach American history to ninth graders at the Colorado Academy in Littleton. The second semester, she taught a class called “Great Cases Under the Constitution.” She loved the subject, and it inspired her to enroll at the University of Colorado Law School. Judge Mix graduated from the University of Colorado Law School in 1985. She began her legal career as a commercial litigator, and over the years, gravitated toward a labor and employment law practice. She has worked with a series of Denver firms, and most recently was of counsel with Phoenix-based Snell & Wilmer in Denver. At Snell & Wilmer, her practice included representing both management and employees in employment termination, discrimination, non-compete, trade secrets, wage and hour, and related matters. Most of her extensive litigation experience has been in federal court. Throughout her career, Judge Mix has generously served the community and the legal profession through bar association, pro bono, and other professional activities. Among many other activities, she served on the American Arbitration Association Employment Law Panel of Neutrals from 2002 to 2007, where she honed her judge skills by arbitrating and helping to settle several employment cases. She has long been an active member of the Colorado Bar Association, where she has served on the Board of Governors, as Chair of the Labor and Employment Law Committee, and as a member of the Continuing Legal Education Employment Law Institute Planning Committee. Judge Mix has also been a long-term member of the Faculty of Federal Advocates. In 2003, she became the co-chair of the FFA’s committee to prepare model employment law jury instructions. The committee issued its model instructions in 2005. Judge Mix has especially enjoyed her work with the Colorado Lawyers Committee. In the early 1990's, she became involved with the CLC’s Hate Violence Task Force, which had developed a mock trial to present to high school and middle school students to educate them about hate crimes. Over the years, as co-chair of the Hate Violence Task Force, she helped to expand the program into an entire curriculum about civil rights and tolerance, which the CLC provided to all middle schools in the state. In 2005, Judge Mix received the CLC’s Individual of the Year award for her work on the program. Judge Mix took the bench on August 6, 2007, becoming the third judge in her family. (Her mother served as a New York State Family Court Judge for ten years, and after retiring from that court, now serves as a Judicial Hearing Officer. Her sister is a Family Court Commissioner in Green Bay, Wisconsin.) The other Colorado Magistrate Judges; Judge Mix’s courtroom deputy, Ellen Miller; and the entire court staff have provided invaluable help and guidance during her transition to the bench. She already loves her new position, which she compares to taking a drink from a fire hose. She especially enjoys the intellectual challenge that judging presents, and the opportunity to help the parties settle their disputes. She says that she “loves it when lawyers help her help them” at settlement conferences by giving her a detailed settlement statement and telling her what their clients need to hear. She is also looking forward to the opportunity to conduct trials. She says that the only thing about being a judge that has surprised her is the extent to which lawyers treat her differently now. She says she “never fully understood how funny your jokes are going to be once you get on the bench.” She wants lawyers to know that she welcomes opportunities to speak; to share her philosophy; and most important, to help lawyers, their clients, and the legal profession as a whole. Welcome to Magistrate Judge Kathleen Tafoya
Colorado’s newest United States Magistrate Judge, Kathleen M. Tafoya, learned her way around a courtroom long before law school. From 1978 to 1982, she worked in the Clerk’s Office for the United States District Court for the District of Colorado, serving in a variety of positions: at the front desk, as a courtroom deputy for the magistrate judges, as a jury clerk, and as a courtroom deputy for the Honorable James Carrigan. She learned the ins and outs of the courthouse, watched countless trials, listened to jurors’ comments about the lawyers, and formed her own views about which lawyers’ techniques worked and which ones did not. And she developed the view that she would be not a bad judge herself — that she could make the decisions correctly and fairly This courthouse experience may be one reason why Judge Tafoya now seems so at ease in her chambers at the Alfred A. Arraj United States Courthouse. She is clearly comfortable in her new position, and she has the natural deportment of a judge: articulate, professional, no-nonsense, and confident. She still knows some of the courthouse employees from her time as a clerk twenty years ago, but enjoys her new role – especially the chance to ride in the judges’ elevator (which she insists has no flat screen TVs or other perquisites!). Lawyers appearing before Judge Tafoya may detect a Texas twang in her voice. She was born in Houston and spent her first few years in Texas. Her family moved around the country often – her father was in insurance, and her mother a homemaker — and she graduated from high school in Indiana. She attended a year of college there before moving to Colorado in 1968, where she married and spent the next ten years focused on raising her sons. After her four years in the Clerk’s office (1978-82), she spent the next few years working as an intern for two firms – first Dixon & Snow, then Cooper & Kelley (which since has become Kennedy Childs & Fogg). She spent days and nights summarizing depositions, often in medical malpractice cases; those were the days before depositions were computerized and word-searchable. While holding down those jobs, she somehow also found time to earn her college degree (in 1984) and her law degree (in 1987), both from the University of Colorado. Her first job after law school was with Denver law firm Gorsuch Kirgis Campbell Walker and Grover, where she worked with a number of excellent lawyers, including another current jurist, the Honorable Wiley Y. Daniel. She enjoyed the varied practice, involving everything from divorce cases to complex commercial litigation. But her idea of being an attorney always had been to be a trial lawyer, and so she jumped at the chance when United States Attorney Michael Norton offered her a position in 1990 as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Task Force. (She jokes that the only reason Norton hired her is that he knew — because Tafoya’s husband Jim is a Deputy United States Marshal — that she would pass the background check. Judge Tafoya had never intended to practice criminal law, and she thought she would stay on as a prosecutor for only a few years. But she loved the frequent trial work, and also the complex investigations that preceded indictments, where she worked closely with law enforcement officers and gained their trust and respect. Her expertise was complicated drug gang investigations, but she also spent time handling appeals and prosecuting health care fraud. From 2005 through 2006 she was chosen by the Department of Justice for a special detail in Washington, D.C., where she assisted the Drug Enforcement Agency and other agencies with international investigations and complex cases, and also traveled around the country as a roving expert, training prosecutors and law enforcement officers on how to conduct narcotics investigations. She also devoted time to service on the Colorado Women’s Bar Association’s Judicial Nominating Committee. After almost eighteen years at the United States Attorney’s Office, Judge Tafoya was selected as a United States Magistrate Judge in September 2007, and began her service on January 4, 2008. She immediately assumed an enormous caseload, and has found herself working long hours to move her cases along as quickly as possible. She observes that for most issues presented to her, there are good arguments on both sides, and no easy answers. She has found the civil bar to exhibit somewhat less formality and cordiality at times than she has been used to with the criminal bar, and urges all attorneys to show each other — and the court — the utmost respect. She does not seek to adhere to any overarching judicial philosophy, other than the consistent effort to be fair and to follow the law. Overall, she has found her transition so far to be smooth, and compliments her staff and the court staff on their helpfulness and professionalism. The formal investiture of Judge Tafoya as a United States Magistrate Judge was held on March 7, 2008. The standing-room-only attendance was a testament to her ability to form positive and lasting relationships with many diverse members of the bar, colleagues and opponents alike. The investiture also showed her own strong family support network, including her husband Jim Tafoya, her three sons, and her two grandchildren. The Faculty of Federal Advocates congratulates Judge Tafoya on her investiture. Opportunities to Provide Legal Representation, Develop Federal Court Experience, and Earn CLE Credits The Faculty welcomes Edward Butler who was appointed as Legal Officer of
the United States District Court for the District of Colorado. Attorneys
who are interested in participating in the Faculty’s Counsel/Co-Counsel
Program should contact Ed Butler. The Counsel/Co-Counsel Program provides
representation in civil cases that, the Judges have determined, are sufficiently
complicated to warrant the appointment of counsel. The program is designed
to provide legal assistance to pro se parties along with a learning opportunity
by pairing more-experienced and less-experienced attorneys. Mr. Butler will
contact attorneys when appropriate cases become available Additionally, under Rule 260.8 of the Colorado Rules of Civil Procedure, an attorney providing pro bono representation in Counsel/Co-Counsel case may receive up to 9 units of credit in a three-year compliance period. If you handle a Counsel/Co-Counsel case, please carefully review Rule 260.8 to insure that you receive the proper credit for your work. Interested attorneys may contact Mr. Butler at 303-335-2043 or by email atEdward_Butler@cod.uscourts.gov. For more information about the Counsel/Co-Counsel program and the opportunity to receive CLE credits for this important service, please visit the Programs and Services section of the Faculty’s website. Tribute to United States District Judge Philip S. Figa On January 16th, 2008, Congresswoman Diana DeGette offered a tribute to United States District Court Judge Phillip S. Figa on the floor of the US Congress. The transcript from the Congressional Record is available here in PDF format.
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