Washington, D.C. – Today, Colorado U.S. Senators Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper recommended three candidates to President Joe Biden for an upcoming U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado vacancy.
In a letter to President Biden, Bennet and Hickenlooper recommend Sundeep K. (Rob) Addy, Kato Crews, and Gordon Gallagher to serve on the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado after Judge William J. Martínez takes senior status on February 10, 2023. The White House will review the candidates and decide who to nominate. The Senate will need to confirm the final nominee.
“Due to their compassion, intellect and temperament, all three candidates would make excellent jurists and serve the people of Colorado with integrity,” wrote Bennet and Hickenlooper in their letter to President Biden.
This is the fourth seat on the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado that the senators are working to fill or have filled. The senators recommended Regina Rodriguez, Charlotte Sweeney, and Nina Wang to serve on the District Court. The Senate confirmed Judge Rodriguez to her position on the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado in June 2021. In August 2021, President Biden nominated Charlotte Sweeney to fill Judge R. Brooke Jackson’s vacancy on the court. In January 2022, Biden nominated Judge Nina Wang to serve on the court once Judge Christine Arguello takes senior status.
More information about each candidate can be found in the senators’ letter to President Biden, available HERE and below.
Dear President Biden:
We write to you regarding the upcoming vacancy on the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado. In February, District Court Judge William J. Martínez announced that he will step down as an active judge and take senior status, effective February 10, 2023. We recommend the following three candidates to serve on the Court. Due to their compassion, intellect and temperament, all three candidates would make excellent jurists and serve the people of Colorado with integrity.
Sundeep K. (Rob) Addy
Rob Addy is a partner at Bartlit Beck LLP in Denver, Colorado. Mr. Addy has litigated before eighteen different federal district courts (including the District of Colorado), three federal appeals courts, five state courts, as well as the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation. From 2020 through 2021, Mr. Addy served as a Special Assistant Attorney General for the State of Colorado, where he was a member of the team that conducted a patterns and practices investigation into the Aurora Police Department and Aurora Fire Rescue. The Aurora investigation was the first of its kind in Colorado history and documented a pattern of racially discriminatory law enforcement practices, which led to the imposition of a five-year consent decree between the City of Aurora and the State of Colorado. From 2005 to 2006, Mr. Addy clerked for Justice Paul Green on the Texas Supreme Court, and from 2004 to 2005, he clerked for Circuit Judge David M. Ebel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit. From 2000 to 2001, Mr. Addy served as a journalist who helped produce Emmy-award winning documentaries for PBS. Mr. Addy graduated with a bachelor’s degree (special honors) from the University of Texas at Austin and with high honors from the University of Texas School of Law, where he was a member of the editorial board of the Texas Law Review.
Kato Crews
Judge Kato Crews has served as a United States Magistrate Judge since 2018. He has volunteered on the boards of numerous local non-profits. From 2000 to 2001, Judge Crews was an attorney with the U.S. National Labor Relations Board, Denver office. He entered private practice as an attorney with Rothgerber Johnson & Lyons LLP, where he made partner. He was later a founding partner of a small firm, Hoffman Crews Nies Waggener & Foster LLP, where he focused on civil litigation and labor and employment law. Judge Crews was sole or lead attorney in multiple jury and bench trials. While on the bench, he founded the Federal Limited Appearance Program (FLAP) with the Colorado Bar Association (CBA) Young Lawyers Division, which provides pro bono representation to pro se litigants during certain court hearings. He also sits on the board of CBA-CLE, and regularly makes himself available to students and young lawyers for mentoring and guidance. A Colorado native, Judge Crews received his undergraduate degree from the University of Northern Colorado, and his law degree from the University of Arizona, James E. Rogers College of Law, where he served on the Arizona Law Review.
Gordon Gallagher
Judge Gallagher has served as a magistrate judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado since 2012. He was unanimously re-appointed to the position in 2016 and 2020. Earlier in his career, Judge Gallagher served as a Deputy District Attorney for the 21st Judicial District (Mesa County) from 1997-2000. In 2000, he began a criminal defense practice focusing on state court litigation in western Colorado. Judge Gallagher served as a member of the Grand Valley Task Force’s criminal justice working group where he worked to address systemic bias in the community. Judge Gallagher also works to provide rehabilitative resources for the Southern Ute and Ute Mountain Ute Tribes. In addition, he has worked for over a decade to provide legal representation to indigent defendants as part of the Alternate Defense Counsel (ADC) and served as Chair of the Pro Se Working Group to “investigate and consider how [the District] court can best facilitate pro se access to the court and how pro se cases can be handled in the most efficient and economical fashion.” Judge Gallagher now serves as Co-Chair of the Pro Se Prisoner Task Force which was constituted to find ways to support and manage pro se litigation by state and federal prisoners. He graduated from Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1991 and obtained his J.D. at the University of Denver College of Law in 1996.
We are pleased to recommend these outstanding candidates to serve on the U.S. District Court. As the process moves forward, please do not hesitate to follow up with us if you have any questions.
Sincerely,