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Frederick B. Skillern Educational Background 1976 Juris Doctor University of Colorado School of Law 1973 B.A. Dartmouth College Professional Experience and Areas of Concentration Fred Skillern returned to the practice of law in 2003 after serving as a District Judge in Colorado’s Eighteenth Judicial District, sitting in Arapahoe County. As a judge, he presided over more than sixty criminal and civil jury trials. He joined the law firm of Montgomery Little Soran & Murray on January 1, 2003 as a shareholder and director. Before taking office as a judge, Mr. Skillern was in private practice in Denver, specializing in real estate and business litigation. A graduate of Dartmouth College and the University of Colorado School of Law, he began his career in 1977 as a deputy district attorney in Jefferson County, Colorado, prosecuting a wide range of felony cases. He then practiced law in several leading Denver firms for twenty years until he was appointed to the bench by Governor Owens in 2000. Mr. Skillern has a wide range of experience in real estate, business, and insurance litigation. He has handled and tried cases relating to contracts, lending and secured financing, real estate development, real estate title, boundary and access disputes, construction contracts and mechanic liens, title insurance claims and coverage questions, eminent domain, commercial leasing, broker commissions, corporate and partnership dissolutions, sales and warranty claims, investment fraud, and foreclosures. He represents clients in insurance coverage questions and title insurance claims, and he defends attorneys and other professionals against professional negligence claims. Fred is a skilled trial attorney, and his judicial experience adds special depth to the services he performs for clients. He has received the highest "AV" rating from Martindale Hubbell since 1988, and was selected as a Colorado Super Lawyer in 2006, 2007 and 2008 in surveys of Colorado lawyers for Denver's 5280 Magazine. Mr. Skillern has a strong interest in the law of real property, and is a popular speaker at continuing legal education seminars. He is the author and continuing editor of several chapters on civil trial practice, the Colorado court system and the law of real property in Krendl’s Colorado Methods of Practice (Thomson-West, 2006), the leading treatise on Colorado law. He has presented the annual case law update for the state’s real estate lawyers at the Colorado Bar Association’s Real Estate Symposium for the last ten years, and speaks regularly before trade groups and attorneys across the state. He has taught a course in Basic Real Estate at the University of Denver's Strum College of Law. Fred has been a leader in efforts to reform both the statutes and rules that deal with his areas of practice. He has served on the Colorado Supreme Court’s standing Committee on Rules of Civil Procedure since 1987, and was lead author for many rule changes that deal with attorney fee awards and procedures applicable to real estate litigation. He is a member of the governing council of the Real Estate Law Section of the Colorado Bar Association (serving as Chairman for 2005-2006) and served as a member of the CBA Title Standards Committee from 1997 to 2007. He was the co-author of legislation that streamlined the process for achieving a release of spurious liens from real property, and worked closely with the bar association and various trade groups on statutory revisions dealing with foreclosures, common interest communities, adverse possession, and the 2006 changes to Colorado's version of the Uniform Statutory Rule Against Perpetuities. In addition to his work for clients in the litigation process, Fred has served as an expert witness in cases involving legal malpractice, attorney fees, real estate, and conflicts of interest. He is ready to apply his judicial skills in the private sector as a special master, receiver, mediator or arbitrator in business and real estate disputes.
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