Maria E. Berkenkotter

Professional career

• From August 2006 to November 2017, Justice Berkenkotter was a District Court Judge in the Twentieth Judicial District
• Before joining the Attorney General’s Office in 1990, Justice Berkenkotter was in private practice at Holmes & Starr, P.C. in Denver, Colorado.
• She clerked for Justice Howard M. Kirshbaum of the Colorado Supreme Court after graduating from the University of Denver Law School in 1987.
• The Chief Judge of the Twentieth Judicial District for the last four years of that time
• The co-author of Generative AI, the Unauthorized Practice of Law, and Self-Represented Litigants, 53 Colo
• Justice Berkenkotter’s practice focused on national and local antitrust enforcement litigation
• Justice Berkenkotter is a frequent speaker on the intersection of generative artificial intelligence and legal and judicial ethics, and on the promise and peril of the use of generative AI by self-represented litigants

Education

Additional information

• Sworn into the Colorado Supreme Court on January 4, 2021.
• Before her appointment to the trial court bench, she ran the Antitrust, Consumer Protection and Tobacco Litigation Units of the Colorado Attorney General’s Office.
• Prior to her appointment, she handled complex mediations, arbitrations and judge pro tem appointments at Judicial Arbiter Group, Inc.