Jack Olsen

"The trend in the courts today, with dockets exploding and bogged down by employment cases, is as much the fault of the defense bar as anyone. It is not in their interest to figure out ways to erase discrimination or resolve differences between employers and employees – short of litigation. It has never been in the interest of the defense bar to become innovative and teach executive staffs how to reduce and resolve conflict in the workplace. They would rather be going to court – for years."

Jack Olsen has been a trial attorney all of his legal career, which spans nearly 30 years. He graduated from the University of Denver College of Law in 1978 while working as senior staff assistant to the governor of Colorado. Mr. Olsen served as general editor of the Denver Law Journal. After working in the litigation section of one of Denver’s largest law firms, Mr. Olsen continued his career as a deputy district attorney in Denver, also serving as a special prosecutor in Boulder County. He attended college on a full basketball scholarship out of Baltimore County, Maryland. His undergraduate degree was in journalism from the University of Colorado, where he graduated on a full scholarship, with honors, in 1972.

Mr. Olsen was Governor Lamm’s press secretary during his first term. A seven-year career in journalism at United Press International, the Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News won him awards for investigative reporting in Denver. His reporting resulted in indictments, exposures of criminal activity and changes beneficial to the public. During the Vietnam War, he volunteered for military service in 1967 and scored a perfect 99 on the military entrance exam, and then became one of the few recruits ever to score a perfect 500 on the physical training course at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. He volunteered for the advance team of the 5th Battalion 46th Infantry going to Chu Lai, Vietnam (south of Danang) in 1968. One-half of its men were wounded or killed within 90 days. On May 23, 1968, Mr. Olsen was hit in the neck by shrapnel and seriously wounded during a firefight near An Loc, Vietnam. He received the Purple Heart and Bronze Star. Mr. Olsen returned to combat duty in Quang Ngai Province, later graduated from the Special Forces Recondo School in Vietnam, finishing second in his class, and joined the all-volunteer Americal Division airborne rangers in Chu Lai. After the war, he assisted the CBS television network and Mike Wallace (and testified in pre-trial deposition) in the United States District Court case of Westmoreland v. CBS in New York.

Mr. Olsen was licensed to practice law in Colorado in 1979 and in New York in 1988. He is admitted to practice before numerous state and federal courts, including the United States Supreme Court. Mr. Olsen has defended multi-million dollar cases and also won million-dollar jury verdicts for his clients, including multi-million dollar verdicts in several states (one more than $2.5 million, another more than $10 million). He maintains an office just outside Boulder, Colorado and another in Manhattan. As time permits, Mr. Olsen is a high school basketball coach. His two sons were college scholarship athletes or captains of their college teams. One is an attorney in Colorado and New York. The other operates an international business. His daughter, an eighth grader, hopes to become a veterinarian. Mr. Olsen would be happy to confer at your convenience.

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Jack Olsen