Maria E. Berkenkotter

Justice Berkenkotter was sworn into the Colorado Supreme Court on January 4, 2021. 

Prior to her appointment, she handled complex mediations, arbitrations and judge pro tem appointments at Judicial Arbiter Group, Inc. From August 2006 to November 2017, Justice Berkenkotter was a District Court Judge in the Twentieth Judicial District. She was the Chief Judge of the Twentieth Judicial District for the last four years of that time. Before her appointment to the trial court bench, she ran the Antitrust, Consumer Protection and Tobacco Litigation Units of the Colorado Attorney General’s Office. Justice Berkenkotter’s practice focused on national and local antitrust enforcement litigation. Before joining the Attorney General’s Office in 1990, Justice Berkenkotter was in private practice at Holmes & Starr, P.C. in Denver, Colorado. She clerked for Justice Howard M. Kirshbaum of the Colorado Supreme Court after graduating from the University of Denver Law School in 1987. 

Justice Berkenkotter is a frequent speaker on the intersection of generative artificial intelligence and legal and judicial ethics, and on the promise and peril of the use of generative AI by self-represented litigants. She is the co-author of Generative AI, the Unauthorized Practice of Law, and Self-Represented Litigants, 53 Colo. Law. 40 (Dec. 2024), and Artificial Intelligence and Professional Conduct: Considering the Ethical Implications of Using Electronic Legal Assistants, Colo. Law. at 20 (Jan./Feb. 2024).