Michael Harris

Michael Harris is the son of a mother who immigrated from Bosnia at 18, and he says first-generation kids get three options: doctor, lawyer or engineer. He started at the University of California, Irvine, in computer science like his father, but hours alone in a computer lab convinced him he needed to be around people. “I’ve got way too many opinions,” he says. A law clerk job at the Law Offices of Gene Goldsman, an Orange County personal injury firm, set him on the path to representing injured people.

Harris says he does not take himself too seriously. He has little patience for lawyers who trade in war stories and self-importance, and he believes there is always a better lawyer out there and something left to learn. He also writes creatively in his free time, short stories among other things, and sees that as an edge when drafting briefs, persuading a mediator, arguing before a judge or speaking to a jury. It pushes him to look for a new angle on a problem rather than a rigid, traditional one.

Nicholas, an eighth grader at a Colorado charter school, was catastrophically injured when his PE teacher allowed tackle football without pads or helmets, then told him to “walk it off” after his femur dislocated and both growth plates shattered. Because Colorado’s Governmental Immunity Act applied, Harris sued only the teacher and pleaded willful and wanton conduct to defeat immunity. He won a Trinity hearing, then the Court of Appeals, and the case resolved for $5.8 million of a $6 million policy. Nicholas now wants to become a doctor.

Harris recalls losing his first trial, a contested-liability car crash case in his second year of practice where the only jury question was whether his client was in the collision. The quick loss stung, but his mentor Paul Marin told him losses are part of the job and to move on to the next case. The lesson he carries: “It’s not about you. It’s never about us. It’s always about the client.” Take one night to sulk, he says, then get up and work for the next client.

Harris earned a B.A. in political science from the University of California, Irvine, in 2004 and a J.D. from Western State University College of Law in 2009, clerking at an Orange County personal injury firm while in school. He moved to Denver in 2011, took only the Colorado bar and is licensed in Colorado. Today he is a partner at Jordan Law (jordanlaw.com), based in Greenwood Village in the Denver area, and a member of the Colorado Bar Association and the Colorado Trial Lawyers Association.

Harris’s results include a $20 million settlement for a fuel tanker explosion that left a client with a permanent brain injury, a $2.25 million recovery in a bad-faith insurance case for a car accident victim, a $2 million settlement for a motorcycle crash caused by a negligent driver and a $1.8 million settlement for a pedestrian struck by a 16th Street Mall bus in Denver. On the “Celebrating Justice” podcast he also described a $5.8 million recovery for an eighth grader injured in a PE class.

Harris, who writes short stories in his free time, contributed a piece of short fiction titled “Happy Hour” to Trial Lawyer’s Journal, following a character named Janie nursing a bad martini at a hipster bar while waiting for a man who set the meeting by text at 2:51 in the morning. He also wrote a “Closing Argument” essay on resilience, integrity and the responsibility of seeking justice, and he was the guest on Season 1, Episode 15 of the “Celebrating Justice” podcast in July 2024.