About James H.
James H. Chalat has spent decades in and around the courtroom. He arrived in practice after law school and quickly took on partner-level responsibilities. His career has threaded through multiple iterations of the same firm name, reflecting both continuity and change over time.
He earned a Bachelor of General Studies in History and English from the University of Michigan. He went on to receive his J.D. from the University of Denver in 1977. Those years set the academic foundation for a career in trial work.
Chalat began practice in 1977 as a partner at Chalat & Co., P.C. Early on he assumed leadership roles and helped reshape the firms that followed. Records show titles including Senior Partner and Senior Trial Lawyer, President and Managing Partner, and later Senior Managing Partner across the firms that carried his name. The firm now listed as Chalat Hatten & Banker PC grew out of that progression.
Courtroom work sits at the center of his professional identity. He is Board Certified in Civil Trial Advocacy by the National Board of Trial Advocacy. He has been active in trial lawyer organizations for many years, holding membership in the American Board of Trial Advocacy, the Colorado Trial Lawyers, the American Association for Justice, and the American Bar Association. Those memberships stretch across decades, signaling steady engagement in the trial bar.
Professional leadership has been another thread of his career. He served as a Master Barrister and later as president of the Marsh Inn of Court, where he participated from the mid-1990s through 2016. He also served on the Board of Directors of the Faculty of Federal Advocates between 2009 and 2013. Outside formal roles he has returned to educational settings as a lawyer coach for high school mock trial teams.
His peers know him for extended service in trial circles rather than for a narrow specialty label. The combination of board certification, long-standing memberships, and firm leadership points to sustained practice in civil litigation and trials. He continues to practice at Chalat Hatten & Banker PC, where he handles civil trials and related litigation matters.
