Hon. Norman Haglund (Ret.), JAMS Mediator and Arbitrator

Hon. Norman Haglund (Ret.) is a JAMS DENVER neutral. JAMS Denver is a licensee office. Policies and procedures may differ between JAMS, Inc., and JAMS Denver. Please visit https://jamsdenver.com/ or contact Lisa Gaige at admindocs@jamsdenver.com or 303-534-1254 for information related to JAMS Denver.

Hon. Norman Haglund (Ret.) is a Colorado native. Before retiring and joining JAMS, Judge Haglund served seven years on the Denver District Court Bench. Judge Haglund is well-known for his calm and centering demeanor on the bench, his respect for the parties and attorneys before him, and his willingness to listen to and get to the heart of conflicting points of view. These attributes and skills well equip him to assist those seeking his services at JAMS. Before being appointed to the Denver District Court Bench, Judge Haglund spent over 33 years as a partner in the highly regarded law firm of Kelly Haglund Garnsey and Kahn with a civil and criminal practice.

Judge Haglund presided over a wide variety of cases, both jury trials and trials to court, and became well known and highly respected as a judge throughout the Colorado legal community. Judge Haglund served six years in the civil division and one year in the domestic relations division. The types of cases he presided over included personal injury and insurance bad faith; medical, legal, and other forms of professional malpractice; contract disputes; real estate and condemnation disputes; products liability matters; construction disputes; matters involving the Colorado Consumer Protection Act; judicial review of administrative or quasi-judicial actions and arbitration proceedings seeking judicial confirmation; appellate review of county court proceedings; business torts and disputes, including non-compete covenants, trade secret matters, intellectual property problems, and business-related breakups; oil, gas, and mineral litigation; and class action proceedings. There were a myriad of other matters that Judge Haglund addressed during his time on the bench. In addition to his formal work on the bench, Judge Haglund has participated in various CLE programs as a representative of the judiciary.

During Judge Haglund's tenure at Kelly Haglund Garnsey and Kahn, he was a full time trial and appellate litigator, primarily in civil and commercial litigation, both in the federal and state courts. Judge Haglund obtained wide experience in a number of fields, including real estate and adverse possession disputes, bankruptcy-related matters, intellectual property, and trade secrets matters, insurance and bad faith litigation, contract disputes, administrative disputes and reviews, and multiple other areas. As an example, Judge Haglund served for several years as an appellate counsel and, subsequently, as lead trial counsel for the trial team in the Taylor Ranch litigation in Costilla County, after the team had successfully secured a favorable outcome in that long-standing litigation before the Colorado Supreme Court.

After obtaining his undergraduate degree from Dartmouth College and his law degree from Harvard Law School, Judge Haglund served one year as a judicial law clerk in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado, followed by four years of service in the U.S. Army JAG Corps (1969-1970 in Vietnam and 1970-1973 in Germany). Thereafter, he served an additional year as a judicial law clerk in the U.S. Circuit Court for the Tenth Circuit, after which he entered private law practice in Denver.

ADR Experience and Qualifications

Judge Haglund comes to JAMS with a wealth of experience as a district court judge, whose responsibilities often involved settlement conferences and mediations between litigants whose cases were pending in other divisions of the District.
Judge Haglund's 2 1/2 year participation as a judge in the Colorado Supreme Court's Civil Access Pilot Project program in several of Colorado's metropolitan area district courts also provided a unique opportunity to explore alternate forms of dispute resolution in the cases before him short of actual trial.
His skills developed and demonstrated on the bench are the culmination of long years of training and experience as a private attorney in successfully shepherding his own clients through the ADR process.

Honors, Memberships, and Professional Activities

Nominated Finalist, Individual Lawyer of Year Award, Colorado Lawyers Committee, 2005
Co-recipient, National Trial Lawyer of Year Award, Trial Lawyers for Public Justice, 2004
Co-recipient, Community Service Award, Colorado Hispanic Bar Association, 2004
Listed in Best Lawyers in America in commercial litigation and appellate law
Long-standing member, Denver, Colorado and American Bar Associations
Member, Board of Trustees, Legal Aid Foundation of Colorado
Member, Denver Bar Association Fee Disputes Committee
Member, Colorado Trial Lawyers Association, until 2007
Sponsor and Instructor, Denver Teen Court Program
East High School (Denver Public Schools) Collaborative Decision Making Committee: Parent Representative on school governing board