Overview

Jim enjoys assisting clients with water resources and related real estate, regulatory, and environmental issues. He represents diverse clients such as municipal water providers, non-profit associations, mining companies, electric utilities, ranch owners, and others.

These clients benefit from this insight as he advises them on these issues in Colorado and New Mexico (his home state). He represents clients with respect to water issues in the Colorado water courts and administrative proceedings. He has also represented clients in general stream adjudications in federal and state courts, and administrative proceedings before the office of the state engineer in New Mexico.

Jim often performs due diligence reviews related to water resource matters, and negotiates and prepares water and land related transactions as well, on both large and small scales. He is often deeply involved in assisting clients to work within the legal system to achieve their long range and strategic planning goals for their water rights portfolios.

Prior to entering private practice, Jim served as a law clerk for Justice Pamela Minzner of the Supreme Court of New Mexico. Prior to law school, he served as a construction project manager for the City of Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Experience & Results

• Represents a major electric utility with respect to all aspects of acquiring, protecting, and adjudicating water supplies for its operations across Colorado and New Mexico
• Represents Colorado municipal water utilities in numerous Colorado Water Court actions and transactions
• Represents a non-profit association that operates and manages a major federal reservoir

Practice Areas

• Water Rights
• Environmental Law
• Real Estate and Ranching

Honors & Insights

• Listed by Lawdragon as one of the “500 Leading U.S. Energy Lawyers” in 2023
• Selected for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America© in the field of Water Law, 2023-2024

Education

• J.D., University of New Mexico, cum laude, 2002 Order of the Coif
• B.A., Architecture, University of New Mexico, 1995

Bar Admissions / Qualifications

• New Mexico, 2002
• Arizona, 2003
• Colorado, 2005
• Oklahoma, 2012
• U.S. District Court, Districts of Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona

Professional & Community Involvement

• Appointed to the Colorado Groundwater Commission by Governor Hickenlooper in 2016, and reappointed by Governor Polis in 2020. Currently serves as vice-chair of that commission
• Served as the chair of the Water Law Section for the 2018 Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Institute
• Editorial Board, Foundation for Natural Resources and Energy Law Journal, 2015–present
• Speaker and Author, “Mineral Resources Development Water Needs: Water Supply Considerations,” Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation Special Institute on the Water-Energy Nexus, September 2012
• Board of Trustees of Denver Christian School, 2018–2022