Melissa Hart

Justice Melissa Hart has served on the Colorado Supreme Court since 2017.  An active member of the Colorado legal community, she is the court’s liaison to the Colorado Access to Justice Commission, the Pathways to Access Standing Committee, the Standing Committee on Family Issues, and the Ralph Carr Judicial Learning Center.  She is the co-Chair of the Judicial Department’s Workplace Culture Initiative Standing Committee.  Justice Hart also serves as the Vice Chair of the Council of the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admission to the Bar and an Adviser to the American Law Institute’s Principles of the Law, High-Volume Civil Adjudication project.  She is a member of the Colorado Women’s Bar Association Foundation Board and was a founding Board member of Legal Entrepreneurs for Justice (Colorado’s affordable law practice incubator) and of the Sonia Sotomayor Inn of Court.  Justice Hart is an adjunct professor at both the University of Colorado Law School (teaching Legal Ethics and Professionalism) and the University of Denver’s Sturm College of Law (teaching Access to Justice).

Prior to joining the Court, Justice Hart was a professor at the University of Colorado Law School, where she directed the Byron R. White Center for the Study of American Constitutional Law.  Throughout her years as a professor, Justice Hart maintained an active pro bono practice, writing amicus briefs in appellate courts and representing clients through Metro Volunteer Lawyers.  Her teaching and scholarship focused on access to justice, constitutional law, judicial decision making, legal ethics, employment discrimination, and civil procedure. 

Justice Hart grew up in Denver, graduating from East High School.  She earned her bachelor’s degree from Harvard-Radcliffe College, spent a year teaching at a high school in Athens, Greece, then returned to Harvard for law school.  At Harvard Law, she was the Articles Editor for the Harvard Law Review and Book Review Editor for the Harvard Women’s Law Journal.  After graduating in 1995, she clerked for Judge Guido Calabresi of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and for Justice John Paul Stevens of the United States Supreme Court.  Following her clerkships, she practiced law for several years in Washington, D.C., including as a Trial Attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice.

Justice Hart and her husband, Kevin Traskos, have two children and two dogs.