About Laura
Laura Dolbow built a legal path that runs through two of the most influential appellate benches in Washington before moving to private practice and then into an academic setting. She earned her J.D. from Vanderbilt University Law School in 2017 after completing a B.A. in chemistry and Spanish at Vanderbilt in 2012. Those early academic choices gave her both technical grounding and a facility with language.
Her first years after law school were spent in federal appellate chambers. In 2017 she served as a law clerk to Judge Timothy B. Dyk at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. That role placed her at the intersection of specialized federal questions and complex procedural work. The next year she clerked for Judge Judith W. Rogers on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, where she encountered a broad mix of administrative, constitutional and statutory disputes.
Dolbow then moved into private practice. In 2019 she joined Covington & Burling, LLP as an associate. At the firm she worked on matters that drew on her appellate experience and her familiarity with federal courts. Her time in a large firm environment exposed her to multi-district litigation, regulatory briefing and client counseling in high-stakes matters.
Colleagues describe her approach as precise and methodical. She tends to break problems into discrete legal questions. She writes tightly and reads records closely. Those habits were forged in clerkships where opinion drafts could turn on a single sentence and where legal argument had to be both clear and concise.
Her academic background in chemistry also informed how she read technical evidence and expert reports. That background can be useful in appeals that touch on patent issues, scientific testimony or regulatory science. Her study of Spanish rounded out her undergraduate work, giving her additional language skills useful in client communications and in reviewing records that contain multilingual materials.
Today Dolbow is based at the University of Colorado Law School, working out of the Wolf Law Building at 401 UCB. Her resume shows a steady arc from appellate clerkships to big‑law practice to the law school setting. She teaches and mentors while continuing to handle matters that arise in federal appellate courts. She currently practices in appellate and federal court matters.
