This month Colorado Law recognizes another one of our highly successful alums, Lucy Schlauch Stark ('98). Stark attended DePauw University where she graduated in 1993 with a BA in history and several minors. After college, Stark moved to Frisco, Colorado and spent a couple of years working and skiing every time she had the opportunity. She had known since the age of six that she wanted to become a lawyer someday–sibling disputes were settled in “family court” trials organized by Stark–and in 1995 she put together her application to Colorado Law five days before the deadline, and was accepted. While in law school, Stark was a member of the ŔÖ˛Ą´«Ă˝ Law Review and published a note titled “The High Tech Legal Practice: Attorney/Client Privilege and the Internet.” Stark also clerked at the law firm of Chrisman, Bynum & Johnson during her 1L summer, and then at the firm of Gibson Dunn & Crutcher for her 2L summer. She graduated Order of the Coif from Colorado Law in 1998.
Stark began her legal career at Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, LLP, where she spent her first year rotating between the firm’s practice groups. Stark found that she really enjoyed doing corporate work, and took the first opportunity she found to rotate back to the corporate practice working for an attorney named Richard Russo. Russo, who helped found the firm’s Denver office, became Stark’s mentor, and she followed in his footsteps as a corporate and securities lawyer. After nine years at Gibson Dunn, Stark left to join the Denver-based firm of Holland & Hart, LLP, where she currently practices. At Holland & Hart, Stark had the unique opportunity of being able to practice alongside her father, a long time partner at the firm. Her private practice focuses on representation of public and private companies, including master limited partnerships (MLPs), in a variety of securities and corporate matters, including public and private debt and equity offerings, disclosure and reporting compliance, tender and exchange offers, and mergers and acquisitions. She is the head of the firm’s Securities and Capital Markets practice group and MLP practice group, and she chairs the Holland & Hart Women’s Forum, which she helped start two years ago.
Stark’s skill as a transactional lawyer has earned her substantial recognition in the Colorado legal community. In 2011 she was recognized by Colorado Super Lawyers as a “Rising Star” in securities and corporate finance, and was selected by peers as the top M&A lawyer in Colorado for Law Week Colorado’s “Barrister’s Best 2011.” She has been listed in the 2009-2013 editions of Chambers USA for corporate and M&A law, and was a Colorado Super Lawyer in 2012 and 2013. Outside of her private practice, Stark regularly does pro bono work for the Rock Mountain Children’s Law Center, acting as a guardian ad litem, and has remained actively involved with Colorado Law. She is a member of the Colorado Law Alumni Board, which helps serve the school by building loyalty and increasing support for the school among alumni and students, while also providing strategic counsel to Colorado Law’s leadership on how to better serve alumni, students, the legal profession, and the community. Stark also serves on a special committee tasked with expanding non-traditional career opportunities available to Colorado Law graduates, and both she and her husband Beau remain staunch advocates of giving back to Colorado Law.
Five Questions for Lucy Schlauch Stark
What is your fondest memory of being a student at Colorado Law?
It’s probably safe to say this now, but at the end of finals each semester my friend Tom Romer and I would meet in the parking lot after our last final to celebrate with a bottle of champagne and cigars.
What do you know now that you wish you had known in law school?
I wish I had known I was going to be a securities lawyer–I probably would have taken some different classes!
What advice would you give to current students as they’re preparing to graduate?
Be open to a variety of career possibilities. If someone had told me during law school that I was going to do securities and capital markets work, I probably would have told them they were crazy, and now guess what I’m doing?
Who was the biggest influence on your career?
There are two: my father, who taught me so much about being a good lawyer and person and effective negotiator, and Richard Russo, who taught me an enormous amount about corporate and securities practice and was extraordinarily patient with me while I learned.
Of what accomplishment are you most proud?
My family. We have dinner together almost every night, and every single one of them is a great person.