About

John B. Roesler received his undergraduate degree, BA in English, from The University of Kansas, then his J.D. degree from The University of Kansas School of Law (1971), where he was a member of the Board of Governors of the Kansas Law Review.  He is currently licensed to practice law in Colorado state courts, the United States District Courts for the District of Colorado, the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, and the United States Supreme Court. 

Upon graduation from law school, Mr. Roesler’s first position was with a major law firm in Kansas City, Missouri, where he practiced law for several years.  There he gained valuable experience from some of the best lawyers in the city, in a national firm.  After the untimely passing of his wife, Mr. Roesler headed out to New Mexico, where he raised his young sons as a single father.  He now has seven grandchildren, some of whom come to ski with him in Colorado. 

After relocating to Santa Fe, New Mexico, the following forty years up to and including Mr. Roesler’s current law practice in Denver can be divided into the first twenty years of practice in New Mexico, and the next twenty years here in Denver, Colorado.  In New Mexico, Mr. Roesler gained skills as a trial lawyer through exposure in the courtroom as an Assistant District Attorney with the Santa Fe District Attorney’s Office.  He was in court on a daily basis for several years and obtained a first-degree murder conviction.  Then in private practice there, he developed a strong reputation (locally and nationally) in the area of civil rights constitutional tort litigation representing victims of police brutality and excessive force used in discipline of students in public schools.  He was selected by his peers for listing in the Martindale-Hubble Bar Register of Preeminent Lawyers – Civil Trial Practice.  He is also listed in Who’s Who in American Law and Who’s Who in America. 

During the New Mexico years, Mr. Roesler litigated his Garcia v. Miera, 817 F. 2d 650 (10th Cir. 1987), cert. denied, 485 U.S. 959 (1989), case through all levels of the federal courts, to the U.S. Supreme Court, which successfully resulted in Tenth Circuit precedent establishing public school children’s Fourteenth Amendment liberty interest protection from excessive punishment.  His client, fifth-grader Theresa Garcia, was held upside down by the vice principal while being struck with a splintered board by the principal of the school.  The decision has formed the basis for jury instructions in such cases.  Mr. Roesler also represented the parents of a boy who died while at school in a small town in Western Michigan.  The boy had a known congenital heart defect, but his teacher forced him to run the “gut run”.  During the extensive sprint, used as punishment for talking in line, the boy’s heart failed.  A substantial wrongful death settlement was obtained with local counsel in Grand Rapids, Michigan.  

Mr. Roesler’s work earned him recognition by then U.S. Senator Jeff Bingaman, who recommended appointment as Circuit Judge to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals under the Obama administration, and the Garcia v. Miera case was featured on the front page of The New York Times and The Washington Post.  John appeared as a guest on the Phil Donahue national television talk show, and he was a speaker on school civil rights issues at several of the National Association for the Prevention of Child Abuse conventions. His work in school law is also featured as a treatise in 48 Am. Jur. Trials.

Upon moving to Denver in 1998, Mr. Roesler was appointed as Special Assistant Attorney General at the Colorado Department of Law for one year before resuming private practice.  During that short tenure, he litigated and obtained decertification of the teacher/coach in the Meeker case, where a boy was pulled out of a wrestling pile by his genitals causing severe injury. 

In Colorado, Mr. Roesler’s law practice has increasingly focused on ADA and Section 504 protections of persons with disabilities in various settings.  In education law, his practice covers each educational level, private and public, primary and secondary, as well as higher education, college, university and professional schools, including medical school students.  He very recently fought an ADA case against the University of Colorado Medical School all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.  Regarding primary and secondary public school education, and obtaining a FAPE, Mr. Roesler is a Continuing Legal Education (CLE) seminar presenter to other Colorado attorneys on the subject of Alternative Court Remedies to IDEA.  He has extensive experience working with forensic Ph.D. psychologists to establish disability and psychological harm.

In the area of Prisoner Rights Law, Mr. Roesler just completed a considerable piece of ADA federal court litigation against the Colorado Department of Corrections (DOC) for its refusal to provide reasonable accommodations in its treatment of a sex offender inmate with mental impairments.  He brought about results including release on parole for his client. And in an earlier landmark victory, he successfully tried a Fourteenth Amendment procedural due process case in U.S. District Court, District of Colorado, which brought about systemic change in the DOC’s procedures, establishing the right to a hearing before removal from treatment.  

In the areas of Contract Litigation and Employment Law, in particular wrongful termination involving “Whistle Blower” activity, Mr. Roesler represents employees who have been wrongfully terminated in retaliation for disclosing unethical or illegal conduct by an employer.  He likes “Whistle Blower” cases because they can affect society as to fairness, justice, health and safety.  Besides practing law, John also enjoys reading (his favorite novels are The Trial by Kafka and The Stranger by Camus), hiking and skiing. His go-to ski area because of proximity to Denver is Copper Mountain, especially now with the Tucker Mountain “Three Bears” – accessed terrain.  He feels a definite connection between skiing, his life experiences, and being a lawyer, and says, “It’s all about taking the plunge, then making the turns.”