Steven Visioli has always loved a challenge. In the courtroom, he feeds off of the energy in closing arguments and cross-examination — so much so, he’s been brought in before to do just that.
Visioli is a partner at BAM Family Law. He’s known for bringing an impressive level of passion, empathy and refined trial skills to cases. He joined BAM during his final year of law school and has made a name for himself at the firm and in the legal community. Visioli was elevated to partner last year.
“I [had] never really done much public speaking before law school,” Visioli admitted. “I found what was called the Student Trial Lawyers Association at the University of Denver.” Through that program, he got to meet a lot of trial teams and work with them on mock trials. “That kind of opened up a whole new world for me.”
Visioli’s favorite parts of trial are cross-examinations and closing arguments. “I’ve made enough of a name for myself with those,” he said. His skill in this area is so well known that he’s been called in just to do the closing argument or cross-examine witnesses. According to his nomination for Law Week’s Up & Coming Lawyers, an Adams County District Court magistrate commented in 2019 that Visioli had delivered the best cross-examination he’d ever seen in a courtroom.
His approach is unique depending on the case, but he said he always factors in the speed, volume and tone of his voice. “I just like to really get onto a rant and kind of get impassioned about the good things in my cases,” said Visioli. “And that’s really just the time that I feel like I shine.” And shine he does.
“I was close to a lawyer[‘s] nightmare when I finally found Steven,” states a May 2020 AVVO review. “Unfortunately, it was after [seven] previous attorneys left me with zero trust in family law attorneys and nearly bankrupt.” The client said they’d been through more than nine years of high conflict litigation and their “case has seen almost every possible filing and order that a post-decree case can see.” But Visioli took it as a personal challenge to turn the client’s experience around with lawyers, according to the reviewer.
“It is a very difficult subject matter often,” Visioli explained. “You’re dealing with really high emotions, sometimes people who have gone through a lot of trauma, and the way that those people react under pressure and the way that those people make decisions… can really vary widely.”
A May 2017 AVVO reviewer said Visioli made her feel immediately at ease as she dealt with a traumatic dispute over parenting time. She said that Visioli got her into a consultation with him within 12 hours of reaching out to him for help. Visioli helped the client get her son back immediately following the hearing. “I now have my son back in my arms and even though my son has complained (lol) I won’t ever let him go,” the reviewer said.
“One thing that we say in family law … is that there’s no winners in family law,” Visioli said. He explained that one of the things he does that helps put clients at ease in high-emotion cases is he details how both parties can move forward. A majority of the time, “those two people still have to deal with each other,” he said. So he’ll try to set the stage for clients to work together going forward, whether that’s making a certain parenting plan work or looking toward a potential modification in the future.
According to Visioli’s nomination, he also volunteers and does pro bono legal work for the Arapahoe County Domestic Relations Pro Se Clinic and he continues to accept appointments through the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado on pro bono family law cases.
“It’s really important, I think, because there’s way more people who need pro bono work than there are attorneys doing pro bono work,” he said. A client review from June 2021 said, “After losing almost 5K with another attorney who showed up completely unprepared for the first mediation meeting, I found Steven due to his kind, public work which he does through various organizations.” The client said he spent hours looking over documents the opposing party presented and said they “received tremendous expertise in the courtroom and in mediation” from Visioli, “a sharp and well-spoken advocate.”
Visioli is not only a cross-examination and closing argument legend at BAM, he’s also well known for his dedication in the moment to getting everything he can for clients. In one memorable case, BAM Founding Partner Heather Broxterman said with just an hour and a half left in the trial, he “turned to his co-counsel [Margot Alicks] and said, ‘I’m going save the dogs!’” The dogs belonged to the client’s husband before the marriage, and it was “an issue no one thought he could win,” Broxterman said.
“The client won on every single issue. Even the dogs. It was wild,” said Broxterman. “Steven is crazy good at his job.”
“It feels good to help somebody out in a way that they weren’t expecting,” Visioli said. “So it was nice to surprise her with that.”