Elizabeth J. Hyatt, Of Counsel

Betsy Hyatt focuses her trial practice on high-stakes business and legal malpractice litigation. She has been intimately involved in some of the most significant business cases in Colorado courts. She represents a wide array of clients, from individuals to Fortune 100 companies. Betsy has successfully tried bench and jury trials as second chair and as lead counsel on behalf of entities and individuals. Her practice includes legal malpractice, business torts, fraud, fiduciary duty and contract dispute litigation. Betsy has been named a Colorado Super Lawyer Rising Star.® Betsy played a significant role in the following recent cases:

• Betsy was part of the Ogborn Mihm LLP trial team that obtained one of the largest legal malpractice jury verdicts in recent U.S. history, $12.8 million, against one of the nation’s largest law firms. 910 Cattle Company v. Thomas A. Ellison, Esq., and Stoel Rives, LLP, Case No. Civil No. 100907407, Third District Court, Salt Lake County, Utah. Betsy drafted and argued all of the jury instructions and many of the pre-trial motions.
• When a Fortune 100 oil company was sued in Denver District Court in a dispute arising out of its $1 billion purchase of a company holding oil leases in the North Dakota’s Bakken oil fields, the plaintiff sought damages of hundreds of millions of dollars. Betsy served as local counsel for the national trial firm Susman Godfrey, LLP. Betsy was intimately involved in all phases of the case.
• In 2010, Betsy (with her former partner, the Hon. Elizabeth Starrs) won the largest plaintiff verdict in memory in Montrose, County Colorado. In Will v. McKenna, Betsy and now-Judge Starrs sued the client’s former attorney for mishandling an underlying podiatry malpractice case. After an eight-day trial, the jury found the attorney negligent and liable for breach of the contingency fee contract, and awarded Betsy’s client $1.15 million in damages.
• When the senior management of a start-up business that had grown to more than $1 billion in annual sales in less than five years squeezed out the minority investors, Betsy represented the minority investors in a lawsuit alleging breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, securities fraud and other claims. The case resulted in a $3.4 million settlement for the clients before trial. U.S. District Court for the District of Utah.

Betsy is active in the Business Torts and Unfair Competition Committee of the American Bar Association’s Section of Litigation, where she is the Tenth Circuit Correspondent. She previously served as an editor of the Business Torts Litigation Committee’s website.

Betsy is a graduate of the University of Colorado School of Law. Prior to joining Ogborn Mihm LLP in 2012, Betsy practiced for several years with an employment and civil rights defense law firm, a professional liability defense firm, and then with Starrs Mihm LLP, a widely known boutique litigation firm. Betsy is admitted to practice in the state and federal courts of Colorado, and the Tenth and Eleventh Circuit Courts of Appeal, and she has represented clients pro hac vice in Utah, Nevada and Florida.

In addition to spending time with her husband and young daughter, Betsy volunteers with her daughter's school library and the Dora Moore Elementary Tutoring Program, a program she has worked with for over twelve years.

AREAS OF PRACTICE:

• Legal Malpractice
• Business Litigation

EDUCATION:

• University of Colorado School of Law
• Colorado State University, B.A., cum laude

ADMISSIONS:

• Colorado
• U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado
• Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals
• Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals