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.

Prior to 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.