Katherine Ellis

Katy finds family law particularly fulfilling because it allows her to assist clients with difficult, deeply personal issues. As an attorney, she believes it is important to use the training and knowledge that she has earned to help her clients achieve fair and reasonable results in their cases. She also feels strongly that it is our duty as attorneys to provide our clients with realistic expectations about their cases. She always remembers that, for her clients, the case at hand is very important to their lives and those of their children.

Katy has been practicing law since 2007. After spending one year clerking for the Honorable Russell Carparelli at the Colorado Court of Appeals, she moved to private practice in 2008 and has been practicing almost entirely family law since that time. She particularly enjoys handling appellate cases and has represented clients in appeals to the Colorado Court of Appeals and the Colorado Supreme Court.

As an attorney, Katy has been a member of the William E. Doyle Inn of Court and the Byron S. White Inn of Court, serving as a co-president of the Byron S. White Inn of Court from 2016-2017. She has also served as a vice-chair and chair of the International Law Section of the Colorado Bar Association.

Katy was born in Washington, D.C., spent five years in Germany as the daughter of an Army psychiatrist, and then moved to Minnesota for the rest of her childhood. She earned a double major in International Affairs and Foreign Languages from Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon. Although she loved the Pacific Northwest, she could not resist the pull of the mountains and moved to Colorado for graduate school.

While at the University of Denver, Katy focused on obtaining practical knowledge by participating in moot court and interning with a district court judge. She competed in the National Environmental Law Moot Court Competition for three years and the Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition for two years. She also participated in the Environmental Law Clinic for one full year. She was an editor for the Denver Journal of International Law & Policy for three years, serving as Sutton Colloquium Editor and then as Editor-in-Chief. While she was earning her juris doctor, she also earned a masters of arts in international studies from the Josef Korbel School of International Studies.

Katy is fluent in Spanish and French.

Here are Katy and her son experiencing the Toronto Aquarium.