THOMAS L. KANAN

Mr. Kanan is of counsel with the firm and has practiced insurance and employer defense for approximately twenty-eight years, after service as a Deputy District Attorney in the First Judicial District. He has specialized in workers’ compensation, a field in which he has been qualified as an expert witness in Colorado’s district courts. His practice has included civil rights, constitutional tort, insurance practice, subrogation, personal injury, professional malpractice, probate, administrative law, and commercial business matters. He was a judicial law clerk for Colorado Supreme Court Justice Luis Rovira; and, while attending law school at the University of Colorado, he clerked for the District Attorney’s Office in the 18th Judicial District and for the Colorado State Personnel Board.

Mr. Kanan believes that the practice of law must be integrated into our society and culture in general in order to be of long-term service to his clients. He has been active as a member of the Colorado Bar Association, in which he has held many offices of responsibility, and in the American and Denver Bar Associations. He has served in leadership for the Colorado Defense Lawyers Association and as a frequent lecturer for Continuing Legal Education/Colorado Bar Association programs. He is an editor for the workers’ compensation law section of The Colorado Lawyer and has been a published author on special topics relating to workers’ compensation, professional practice and ethics, subrogation, and automobile liability in Colorado. He has committed his time to a number of organizations involving education, employment, health and charity, including acting as Chairman of the Administrative Adjudication Section of the Governor’s Taskforce on Civil Justice Reform (2000-01) and as a consumer representative on the State Nursing Board (2005-07). He has an active appellate practice, with many of his cases resulting in published opinions on significant areas of Colorado law.

Mr. Kanan attended the University of Denver as an undergraduate on an Alumni Scholarship and graduated Magna Cum Laude in English, with a Spanish minor, and as a Phi Beta Kappa. He attended D.U.’s graduate school in English literature for two years on a Ford Fellowship. After six years of casework, community organization and child welfare service for the Denver Department of Social Services, he obtained a law degree in 1980. Since that time, he has been honored with the Lansford Butler Award (for service to the Colorado workers’ compensation system), AV designation by Martindale-Hubbell, and since 2009 has been selected as a “Super Lawyer.” Mr. Kanan proudly belongs to the Minoru Yasui Inn of Court in Denver.

THOMAS L. KANAN can be reached at (303) 297-7294 or tom.kanan@ritsema-lyon.com

(303) 297-7294
tom.kanan@ritsema-lyon.com

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