Jim R. Carrigan
The Honorable Jim Carrigan was born in Mobridge, South Dakota, where his father owned and operated a bakery. The Great Depression forced the family to move to Hallock, Minnesota, where he attended public school. His English teacher to whom he says he owes his excellence in writing and love of poetry and drama and with whom he is still good friends is Helny Ohnstad of Grand Forks. Upon graduating from high school, and with no funds for college, he hitchhiked to Los Angeles where he found work in a brass foundry. Before long, work in the foundry solidified his ambition for higher education, and the very low tuition rate at the University of North Dakota made it his choice from 1948 until 1953. He was admitted to the University's law school after three years as an undergraduate, and received both his Ph.B and Juris Doctor degrees simultaneously in 1953. Upon graduation he practiced law in Williston, North Dakota and then taught for two years at New York University Law School, while earning a master's degree in tax law. In 1956, he and his bride, Bev, moved to Denver where he became a trial attorney until joining the faculty of the law school at the University of Denver. He later taught in NYU Law School's Master of Tax program, and was on the law faculties of the University of Washington and the University of Colorado, before returning to trial practice in Denver.
His full-time public service includes a combined twenty years as Colorado State Court Administrator, Justice of the Colorado Supreme Court and as United States District Judge. During his legal practice and judicial tenure, he taught law at the University of Colorado, frequently lectured at legal seminars around the country, and served on the Colorado Supreme Court Board of Bar Examiners, the original Colorado Bar Association Ethics Committee, and the University of Colorado Board of Regents. He also served on Denver's Metropolitan Stadium Commission. Also, with encouragement from Bev who loves to travel, he taught for the U.S. Information Agency in Taiwan, Zambia and Jamaica, and in an American Bar Association program for judges in Zagreb, Croatia, as well as in Budapest and Vezprem, Hungary. He has also taught for the National Law Societies of Ireland and Northern Ireland, and in programs at Oxford University in England, sponsored by the American Bar Association and the English Barristers Association. Early in his career as a trial lawyer he was inducted into the prestigious International Society of Barristers and the International Academy of Trial Lawyers and remained active in both throughout his professional life. He was one of two trial lawyers on the original faculty of the National Judicial College for which he taught during its first 14 years of existence. Based on that experience, he helped create the National Institute for Trial Advocacy (NITA) for which he has served on its Board of Trustees since its founding, has chaired the Board, and has taught extensively. On the Federal District Court, Judge Carrigan handled over 6,000 civil cases and over 1,500 criminal cases. He also sat on the Tenth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. After retiring as a Federal District Judge in 1995, he became an arbitrator for the Judicial Arbiter Group handling cases in 10 states. He and Bev have six children and (at this writing) ten grand children.
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