Dan Recht, criminal defense lawyer and co-founder of Recht Kornfeld, officially entered retirement on Jan. 1. While his retirement is in effect, his work in civil issues is not.
Recht has served on boards of many groups that have shaped criminal defense law, including serving as president of the Colorado Criminal Defense Bar and chairing the ACLU of Colorado and 2nd Judicial District Judicial Performance Commission. And his representative work includes defending the Denver Nuggets and the Tattered Cover Bookstore.
In the Tattered Cover case, Recht defended the booksellers’ right to keep customer purchases confidential from the local police department. He argued to the Colorado Supreme Court that both the U.S. and Colorado constitutions protected the right to receive and distribute information and ideas and purchase reading material anonymously.
Recht helped found his namesake firm Recht Kornfeld in 2002 with criminal defense attorney Rick Kornfeld. Kornfeld said that Recht’s clients and “every judge or justice before whom he’s ever appeared can see what a committed advocate Dan is.”
“Dan knows that principled lawyering is essential to ensuring fairness in the judicial system and protecting our fundamental rights,” Kornfeld said.
As the firm has broadened beyond criminal defense in scope over the years, Recht said it has become a boutique firm of litigators.
Along with his partners, Recht said the firm has always chosen to grow slowly and take on lawyers who excel in their specialty and are ethical beyond reproach while fitting in the firm’s culture of informality and cooperation. “I’m terribly proud of it,” Recht said. “I’ve given over 40 years of my life with complete passion and commitment to criminal defense and this firm, and it is one of the prides of my adult life.”
As the scope of the firm has broadened from criminal defense to other forms of litigation, including political, regulatory, civil and appellate law, Recht said he leaves the firm feeling ambivalent about leaving.
In terms of criminal defense, Recht said he’s always felt “quite passionate” about that representation. He came to believe in the mission of the public defender early in his time in that role, saying he’s “swallowed the Kool-Aid,” adding he’s been drinking it ever since.
When he left the public defender’s office, Recht said he had the opportunity to work at big firms if he wanted. However, he didn’t, and instead started his own firm dedicated to high-level criminal defense.
While his retirement will not be an end to his legal activities, Recht said he does not anticipate any active role at the firm bearing his name. He does believe, however, that work needs to be done in the criminal justice system.
He said he believes the criminal justice system needs a long look at itself to see “a racist reflection.” Since the time he was a young public defender, he said he’s seen bias against people of color. “And so, all public defenders, long before Black Lives Matter, regularly saw the discrepancies between the sentences imposed upon Black men and white men,” he said. “It’s truly the new Jim Crow, where prisons are disproportionately filled with young black men who are then relegated to second-class citizenship forever — for wearing the scarlet letter of a felon.”
He feels that there is a need for significant change for the sentencing disparities, which he said he feels are becoming unconscionable. However, he said he thinks more people are taking note of that disparity and are working hard to change it.
As a defense attorney, a person must be able to sympathize with a client, find the good and humanity in them, be able to feel his pain and treat him “as a brother” — despite the wrong things they may have done. “The last thing that they need is a second judge,” he said. “What they need is an articulate voice to explain their situation, and I’ve always been very comfortable in that role.”
With retirement, Recht said he’s also looking forward to spending more time with family and his grandchildren close by and is excited to engage other passions. His current intentions are for further adventure travel around the world. Recht said he’s done bike trips across the globe, hiked across Nepal and he hopes to do more while physically able.
And his work isn’t over. Recht says he plans to continue his work with the ACLU by chairing its legal panel, do pro bono work for nonprofits, and continue his involvement with the Colorado executive committee of J Street, a nonprofit organization committed to a peaceful resolution to the occupation of Palestinians in Israel and Palestine.
—Avery Martinez