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From every corner of the globe, graduates of Colorado Law are making a profound impact in their communities, embodying the highest values of our institution. At the Law Alumni Awards Banquet, our signature alumni event, the Law Alumni Board has the privilege to honor these exceptional individuals for their lasting contributions to the legal profession, service to their communities, and dedication to the law school.

The honorees for the 2026 Alumni Awards are: David Stark ’73, Hon. Robert Bob E. Blackburn ’75, Kyriaki (Kiki) Council ’17, David W. Douglas ’75, Gloria Jean Garland ’82, Richard M. Murray ’07, and Stephen Hillard ’76. These outstanding alumni will be celebrated at the 45th annual Colorado Law Alumni Awards Banquet on Thursday, March 26, 2026, at the Sheraton Downtown Denver.

The Law Alumni Board nominations committee accepts nominations for awards year-round with a deadline of July 31 each year. The board votes on award recipients in the fall. Read more about this year’s extraordinary awardees below.

David Stark��’73 - William Lee Knous Award

David W. Stark is a Retired Partner at Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP. Before his retirement he was Senior Counsel at Faegre Drinker where he served as Professional Responsibility Counsel for the firm and in that role advised the firm and its lawyers on Ethics, Professional Responsibility matters, and claims against the firm. He has practiced law in Colorado for 52 years. As a partner at his firm, he tried scores of complex commercial jury and court trials with an emphasis on professional responsibility, energy, banking, securities fraud, intellectual property, and probate and trust. He also represented clients in numerous appeals, including briefing and oral argument, in state and federal courts.

He is currently chair of the Colorado Supreme Court Advisory Committee on the Practice of Law, which oversees the Colorado Attorney Regulation System on behalf of the Colorado Supreme Court (2001 to present). And he is a long-time member of the Colorado Supreme Court Standing Committee on the Rules of Professional Conduct, the CBA/DBA Professionalism Coordinating Council, the Colorado Bar Foundation, the Colorado Supreme Court Task Force on Lawyer Well-being, and the chair of the Executive Committee of the Colorado Lawyers Committee.

He has also taught Legal Ethics at the University of Colorado School of Law as an adjunct. He also served on the CU Law Alumni Board as a member and as the chair. Mr. Stark was the Board Chair of Legal Entrepreneurs for Justice (2018-2021); a legal incubator helping to teach and mentor socially conscious lawyers wanting to serve modest means clients. He has promoted and helped create many access-to-justice programs including the Licensed Legal Paraprofessional Program, Succession to Service, and the proposed Virtual Proceedings initiative, now the subject of a Chief Justice Directive.

Mr. Stark currently serves on the Colorado Access to Justice Commission and is the chair of its Delivery Committee. The committee promotes the delivery of legal services from multiple angles. These include Pro Bono Representation, Alternate Providers, Affordable Representation, Local ATJ Committees, and Rural Legal Services. He is a Denver native and a graduate of the University of Colorado, receiving his B.A. in Sociology in 1969 and his J.D. in 1973.

Hon. Robert E. Blackburn��’75 - Distinguished Achievement - Judiciary

Born at an early age as Robert Edward Blackburn on April 12, 1950, in Denver, Colorado, as the first of three children to Harry E. (Ed) Blackburn, Jr., and Charlotte Jane Raser-Blackburn. I was named for my hellraising, hard drinking, gun toting, Pony Express riding, mule skinning great grandfather Bob Blackburn.��

After my father graduated from the Colorado School of Mines in 1952 with a degree in geophysical engineering, he took a job with Mobil Oil Company, and we began to chase oil and gas from Willows to Stockton, California, to Salt Lake City, Utah, to Durango,

Colorado. In March 1961, my life changed dramatically: we moved from idyllic Durango to Las Animas, Colorado, to life on an irrigated farm and cattle ranch.

Overnight, I went from the fifth grade in a brand-new elementary school to a rustic, paint starved, two-room country schoolhouse – grades one through four in one room and grades five through eight in the other – with no running water or indoor plumbing.

I graduated with honors with 83 condisciples from Las Animas High School in 1968. I was a good student and athlete. My senior year I was all-state in football and all- conference in football, basketball, and baseball.

I spurned a full-ride baseball scholarship to DU in favor of a combined academic and football scholarship to Western State College in Gunnison. It was one of the best decisions I ever made. While at Western, I was a member of the debate team, student body vice-president and then president, and I was introduced to handball – the greatest sport ever devised.

After graduating with honors in May 1972, I began my legal education in August at my favorite law school – CU Law. While attending law school, I worked full-time managing apartment complexes in Boulder for Van Schaack and Company. I graduated in two and one-half years in December 1974, took the bar in February 1975, was admitted to the bar on May 19, 1975, and returned to Las Animas to go to work for the rest of my life.

From May 1975, until roughly May 1980, I was extremely fortunate to be a partner with Oakley Wade in Wade & Blackburn. Thereafter, I was a sole practitioner until July 28, 1988, when then Governor Roy Romer appointed me to the district court bench in the Sixteenth Judicial District, consisting of Bent, Crowley, and Otero counties.

On March 25, 1977, I married Connie, my beautiful and loving wife of 49 years -- and still counting. We have been blessed with three children and eight grandchildren.

I was nominated by President George W. Bush to a position on the District Court for the District of Colorado on September 10, 2001. I was confirmed by the U. S, Senate, by a vote of 98 to 0, on February 26, 2002, and my commission was executed March 6, 2002. It has been the honor and privilege of my life to serve as a federal district judge ever since.

Kyriaki (Kiki) Council ’17 - Distinguished Achievement - Recent Alumna��

Kiki strives to secure every human’s legal and social rights to autonomy over their choices for their bodies. She was born in Denver, Colorado and raised in Aurora, Colorado, where she attended Smoky Hill High School. Kiki received her Bachelor of Arts in International Studies from the University of Chicago and her Juris Doctor from the University of Colorado.

For the past decade, Kiki has volunteered and worked in the abortion movement, from abortion clinic escorting in college, to abortion fund board service during her years of private practice, to full-time employment as an abortion rights attorney. Kiki’s pro bono practice is dedicated solely to representing young people in judicial bypass petitions in Colorado so they can access their healthcare without interference. Kiki and the Lawyering Project recently filed a lawsuit in Colorado to enjoin the Parental Notification Act. Before fully dedicating her practice to reproductive rights, health, and justice, Kiki clerked on the United States Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit and practiced labor and employment defense at private law firms.

In 2022, Kiki helped to draft and pass the Reproductive Health Equity Act, which articulated for the first time, every Coloradoan’s right to reproductive healthcare without governmental interference. RHEA laid the groundwork for Amendment 79, which amends the Colorado Constitution to include the right to reproductive healthcare. Over the years, Kiki has continued to consult and work with advocacy groups like Cobalt, COLOR, and Colorado Doula Project to further secure and fight for reproductive rights in Colorado.

In addition to her passion for reproductive rights, health, and justice, Kiki also cares deeply about creative pursuits, which lately include pottery and ceramics. Kiki currently lives in Denver with her husband, Jack, and their rambunctious toddler, Landon, who was born with the use of assistive reproductive technology. Kiki is extremely grateful for this award and would like to thank her friends and family. This award is dedicated to all the young people she has helped obtain abortions in Colorado and elsewhere.

David W. Douglas ’75 - Distinguished Achievement - Special Recognition

For more than 40 years David Douglas has headed organizations dedicated to providing clean drinking water worldwide. He currently works with international organizations and faith-based entities to ensure adequate water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) in hospitals and clinics in developing countries. For 35 years he headed the Santa Fe-based non-profit, Waterlines, which provided technical help and funding for drinking water projects in over 1,000 rural communities, schools and healthcare facilities. Between 2005 and 2022 he led three Washington DC-based advocacy organizations (Water Advocates, Advocates for Development Assistance, and Global Water 2020) designed to increase public and private American support for WASH projects and poverty-focused foreign aid. The initiatives enabled the passage of ground-breaking Congressional legislation and appropriations to bolster international water and sanitation programs.

Earlier in his career he worked as an environmental lawyer and wrote extensively for periodicals on U.S. and international environmental issues. He is the author of Wilderness Sojourn: Notes in the Desert Silence, Letters of Faith, and co-author with his wife, Deborah, of Pilgrims in the Kingdom: Travels in Christian Britain. He is a director of the Wallace Genetic Foundation.

Born in Washington D.C., he and Deborah have lived in Santa Fe for fifty years. Their two daughters, Katie and Emily, son-in-law Jeff, and five grandchildren live in the Boston area.

He is a graduate of Colorado Rocky Mountain School (1967), Ohio’s College of Wooster (1971), and the University of Colorado Law School (1975).

Gloria Jean Garland ’82 - Distinguished Achievement - Public Service

Gloria Jean Garland is a graduate of the University of Colorado School of Law in Boulder and subsequently earned an LL.M. in international and comparative law from the Free University of Brussels. She is a human rights lawyer and a retired Foreign Service Officer.

After a decade as a trial lawyer in the San Francisco Bay area, Jean was the first liaison for the American Bar Association’s Central and East European Law Initiative program (CEELI) to the newly independent country of Slovakia. She then worked as a rule of law advisor for USAID in Slovakia and later headed up a USAID-funded project based in Budapest (International Center for Not-for-Profit Law) that focused on developing legal frameworks for civil society organizations in the new democracies of Central and Eastern Europe. Following that, Jean became the Legal Director for the European Roma Rights Center, an international human rights organization based in Budapest focusing on the rights of Europe’s extended Roma (Gypsy) population, where she litigated numerous human rights cases before the European Court of Human Rights and various UN bodies. She was also an adjunct professor in the Human Rights Division of the Legal Studies Department at Central European University in Budapest.

Jean returned to USAID in 2006 as a Democracy Fellow, later becoming a Foreign Service Officer and serving at USAID headquarters in Washington DC and U.S. Embassies in Haiti, Afghanistan, Colombia, Rwanda, and Mexico. In Haiti, she monitored projects to provide emergency court services after the 2010 earthquake. In Afghanistan, she oversaw projects to develop the capacity of the Afghan judiciary, where the number of women judges increased from 10% to 20% in one year. In Colombia, she directed the Office of Vulnerable Populations focusing on reintegrating child soldiers into the civilian population and on developing the self-governance capacities of the Afro-Colombian and indigenous populations. In Rwanda, she was the Director of USAID’s Office of Governance, Human Rights and Democracy, with programs addressing human trafficking, justice reforms, and post-genocide reconciliation. She and her husband Bruce Byers currently live in Steamboat Springs, Colorado.

Richard M. Murray ’07 - Distinguished Achievement - Private Practice

Richard is a shareholder in the Denver office of the national law firm Polsinelli. His practice focuses on complex litigation matters in the commercial and health care space. Before private practice, he was a law clerk for Colorado Supreme Court Justice Nathan B. Coats.

Richard currently serves on the Board of Trustees of the Denver Bar Association, and previously served as the DBA’s Treasurer, First Vice President (twice), and Second Vice President. He previously served as Chair of the Colorado Access to Justice Commission (ATJC), President of Continuing Legal Education in Colorado, Inc. (CBA-CLE), and Chair of CU’s Law Alumni Board.

As Chair of the ATJC, Richard worked to have the 20-year-old Commission codified and established as a Colorado state commission with the passage of the Colorado Access to Justice Commission Act. The Act codified the ATJC into state law, created an annual reporting requirement for the ATJC to present policy and legislative recommendations to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees and the Governor, and established the Access to Justice Cash Fund in the state budget.

Richard is a past recipient of the Denver Bar Association’s Volunteer of the Year Award (2024) and Young Lawyer of the Year Award (2018). In 2020, he received the prestigious Richard Marden Davis Award from the Denver Bar Foundation. He has been honored as one of the Top 25 Most Influential Young Professionals in Colorado by ColoradoBiz magazine, named in The Best Lawyers in America®, a ten-time “Rising Star” in Colorado Super Lawyers, and featured as a “Compleat Lawyer” by Law Week Colorado.

While an undergraduate at CU, Richard served as a student body president (Tri-Executive). One of his lasting legacies on the Boulder campus was his leading a capital construction funding initiative that secured funds for the construction of the Wolf Law Building, ATLAS Building, Visual Arts Complex, and addition to the Leeds School of Business.

He resides in Highlands Ranch with his wife, Elizabeth (CU Boulder ’07, B.A. Psychology), and their two children. In their free time, you can find them cheering on the Buffs at Folsom Field and the CU Events Center.

Stephen Hillard ’76 - Distinguished Achievement - Dean’s Choice - Private Practice

Mr. Hillard graduated from high school and attended Mesa Junior College in Grand Junction, CO. His mother was a waitress at Woolworth’s. His father was a deputy sheriff. He spent summers picking fruit with braceros in California.

At Colorado State University he graduated with honors, oversaw all campus media, and won awards in film-making. He received the CSU Distinguished Alumni Award in 2006.

He went to Columbia University as a National Woodrow Wilson Fellow and tutored inmates at Riker’s Island Prison.

At CU Law, Mr. Hillard was Managing Editor of the Law Review, received the Brophy Award as Best Writer, and represented the school in the National Trial Court Competition.

He was honored to serve as law clerk to Justice William H. Erickson on the Colorado Supreme Court.

During his legal career in Alaska, he became a partner in the highly-regarded Los Angeles firm of Munger, Tolles and Olson. He worked extensively with Alaska Natives, ran the largest minority-owned broadcast group in the United States, and pioneered minority participation in the ownership and operation of national wireless businesses.

Mr. Hillard founded Council Tree Communications, a private equity fund, with a commitment to enhance diversity of ownership on a national scale. That work has included substantial participation by Native American, Hispanic, and African-American groups. Examples are control of the Telemundo Network (then the fastest-growing network in the U.S.), and Alaska Native Wireless (then the largest minority-controlled FCC licensee) with 40,000 Native American beneficiaries. He created the Spanish-language television station KMAS in Denver.

In 2015, Mr. Hillard received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Colorado Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

He was an effective supporter for bringing the Sundance Film Festival to Boulder. His first novel, “Mirkwood,” was an Amazon Best Seller. His first movie, “Glowzies,” was filmed in Colorado and premiered at the prestigious Sitges International Film Festival in Spain.

His extensive philanthropy includes CU Law (Indian Law Clinic and Council Tree Endowment), CSU (Philosophy and Agriculture Departments), the Colorado Hispanic Chamber, the Denver University Center for Women, and Escuela Tlatalolco (a charter school for at-risk Hispanic and Indigenous children).

Mr. Hillard resides in Mesa County with his wife, Sharmaine, a native of St. Kitts. Between them, they have seven children and four grandchildren.