Karen S. Steinhauser
Aurora Municipal Court
The Honorable Karen Steinhauser is a Judge, a trial lawyer, an Implicit Bias Instructor, Adjunct Law School Professor and NITA Instructor. She has practiced law for over 40 years and has tried more than 300 jury trials. She has been recognized as a Super Lawyer from 2012-2022. Karen has taught Evidence and Trial Advocacy as well as other substantive classes at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law for 32 years and was the traveling mock trial coach for 17 years, leading the team to two National Championships. She has been a faculty member for NITA for over 30 years, serving as a program Director for custom programs such as Trial Skills Programs, Deposition Programs, Fact Finding Programs and Mediation Programs, and has also served as co-Program Director for NITA’s flagship National Trial Skills Program. Karen began her legal career in 1981 as a prosecutor for the Denver District Attorney’s Office, where she stayed for 20 years. She was appointed to a full-time faculty position at the University of Denver Sturm college of Law for six years, and then went into private practice focusing on civil trial work, including employment law, professional liability defense and personal injury. She later expanded her practice to include domestic relations law and criminal defense and started her own law firm. She was appointed as a relief judge for Aurora Municipal Court in September of 2018, and was appointed to the Colorado Supreme Court Evidence Rules Committee in 2021. Her most recent job was serving as a part-time deputy district attorney for a short-handed judicial district. Karen began providing workshops and trainings for lawyers and non-lawyers in the field of Implicit bias in 2016. Karen was awarded the Prentiss Marshall award by NITA in 2017, for the Development of Innovative Teaching Methods or Programs, for the work she did developing an implicit bias training program for the NITA National Trial Skills Session. She frequently serves as a media consultant both locally and nationally, being asked to comment on various high-profile cases and legal issues.
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