FISCHER BROWN LAW - Key Persons
Mr. Bartlett is a native of Colorado. He has extensive experience in complex transactions involving land, water and business interests. Through his services provided at Fischer, Brown, Bartlett, Larsen & Irby, P.C., Mr. Bartlett serves municipalities, developers, and ditch and reservoir companies in water acquisition, development, water planning and real estate matters. Mr. Bartlett also provides qualified intermediary services for tax deferred exchanges.
Mr. Bartlett attended the University of Colorado at Boulder where he obtained his Bachelor of Arts degree with an emphasis on International Affairs and Latin America in 1990. Mr. Bartlett received his Juris Doctorate degree from the University of Denver Sturm College of Law in 1993. While attending law school, he was an editor for the Denver Journal of International Law and Policy. He also served as assistant to the legal counsel to United States Senator Hank Brown. Prior to becoming a shareholder in Fischer, Brown, Bartlett & Gunn, P.C. in 2005, Mr. Bartlett practiced with his law firm of Gstalder & Bartlett in Louisville, Colorado for ten years.
Mr. Bartlett received numerous awards for pro bono work in Boulder County, was a member of Leadership Louisville, and a member of the Boulder County Estate Planning Council. Mr. Bartlett has served as an adjunct professor in the Finance and Real Estate Department at Colorado State University College of Business. He also is a continuing legal education faculty member for the Colorado Bar Association. Mr. Bartlett is currently a member of the Water Law Section of the Colorado Bar Association and serves on the Colorado Water Congress. His advocacy includes providing testimony in front of congressional committees.
Mr. Brown has practiced with Fischer, Brown, Bartlett, Larsen & Irby, P.C. since 1999. Since joining the firm, he has worked extensively on water quantity, water quality and real property matters. He has successfully represented clients in all of these areas, but the focus of his practice is representing a varied clientele before the Division No. 1 Water Court (South Platte Basin). Mr. Brown serves on the South Platte Basin Roundtable and is also on the steering committee and is a founding member of the Poudre River Runs Through It Study/Action group in the Poudre River Basin. Mr. Brown has also participated for over 20 years on Colorado Water Congress State Affairs Committee, and in this capacity has worked on water related legislation.
Prior to joining the firm, Mr. Brown clerked for the Honorable Walter Stauffacher in the District Court of Washington State. In this capacity, he served as the lead clerk on the original adjudication of water rights on the Yakima River Basin in Washington State (which is the equivalent of the Water Referee in the Colorado court system). Mr. Brown also served as a member of "Dividing the Waters" an organization of judges, masters and referees involved in the adjudication of water in the western United States.
Mr. Brown received his Juris Doctorate, with an emphasis in Environmental Law, from the University of Oregon School of Law in 1997. He also received a Bachelor of Science in Economics from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1990, and his Masters of Science in Applied Economics, with an emphasis in Natural Resources, from Montana State University in 1994.
Ms. Larsen provides a broad range of estate planning services from drafting wills and trusts to assisting clients with complex and sophisticated approaches such as qualified personal residence trusts, grantor retained annuity trusts, charitable lead and remainder trusts, generation-skipping trusts and irrevocable life insurance trusts. Ms. Larsen assists her clients in planning for the succession of a closely held business and the creation of entities to facilitate the transfer of family wealth. Her practice also includes helping clients implement lifetime gifting programs, including charitable giving.
In addition to estate planning services, Ms. Larsen provides a broad range of probate and estate administration services ranging from standard probate and ancillary probate services to more complex post-mortem tax planning and estate administration services involving valuation issues, disclaimers, retirement plans, and the preparation of Federal estate tax returns.
In conjunction with advising clients regarding the administration of decedents' estates, she prepares court documents, accounting, inventories, estate tax returns and closing documents. She advises personal representatives, trustees and other fiduciaries regarding estate and gift tax issues, fiduciary issues, and distribution and creditor issues.
Ms. Larsen was raised in Iowa, completing her undergraduate degree at the University of Iowa in 1996. She earned her law degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 2000. While in law school, Ms. Larsen began her career in the estate planning arena as a part of the family wealth planning division of the private client services group of one of the largest international accountancy and professional services firms. Before joining Fischer, Brown, Bartlett, Larsen & Irby, P.C. as an associate in 2006 and as a shareholder in 2009, she practiced at a prominent estate planning and administration firm in Denver, Colorado.
Ms. Brown received her undergraduate degree from Colorado State University in 1986 and her Juris Doctorate from the University of Colorado in 1990.
Ms. Brown began practicing law in 1990. In 1996, she became a shareholder of the firm now known as Fischer, Brown, Bartlett, Larsen & Irby, P.C. Her primary areas of emphasis are estate planning, probate and trust administration. Ms. Brown's practice encompasses a broad range of client needs, from basic wills and trusts to sophisticated tax planning for large estates.
Throughout her professional career, Ms. Brown has been actively involved with various community boards and committees, including, but not limited to the Board of Directors for the Fort Collins Commerce Bank/Verus Bank of Commerce, executive committee member and charter member of WomenGive, President and a member of the Board of Directors of the Fort Collins Area United Way (now known as the Larimer County United Way), Executive Committee member for the Larimer County Bar Association, the Board of Directors for the Poudre Valley Hospital Foundation, the Board of Directors for the Poudre School District Foundation, and the Board of Directors the Downtown Development Authority.
Ms. Irby began practicing law at Fischer, Brown, Bartlett, Larsen & Irby, P.C. in 2005. She focuses her law practice on real estate and water law matters.
Ms. Irby has vast experience in advising her clients in multifaceted real estate transactions, including the purchase, sale and transfer of water rights, land, and commercial properties; preparing and negotiating purchase and sale agreements, complex easements, and leases; addressing ownership and title issues; and counseling her clients on land use matters, including land planning and development. She also assists her clients in all aspects of water law from simple well and water rights ownership to representing her clients in Division No. 1 Water Court cases. Ms. Irby also enjoys assisting clients with forming limited liability companies, partnerships, and S-corporations, and preparing the necessary ancillary documents. In all her practice areas, Ms. Irby takes a practical approach to reach solutions for her clients in these ever-changing areas of law.
Ms. Irby earned her Juris Doctorate from the University of Denver Sturm College of Law, where she served as the Comments Editor for the Denver University Law Review and graduated Order of St. Ives. She received her undergraduate degree in journalism at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Todd Rogers' practice focuses on resolving issues in real estate and commercial settings. He has been practicing law in Northern Colorado since 1994 and was a member of Liley, Rogers & Martell, LLC, prior to joining our firm. Todd has extensive experience in real estate and commercial litigation and transactions, including ditch and road easements, title matters, contracts, corporate, Limited Liability Company and partnership matters, development disputes, easements, and associations.
Todd received his undergraduate degree from Colorado College and his law degree from the University of Colorado School of Law. He is active in the community, including having served as Board President for Harmony House and CASA of Larimer County.
Ms. Coulter joined Fischer, Brown, Bartlett, Larsen & Irby, P.C., in the fall of 2018 after a year-long clerkship with Chief Judge Hartmann in Water Division One.
She earned her bachelor's degree in journalism at Dixie State University in St. George, Utah, and her master's degree in journalism at Arizona State University's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.
Her first job at a newspaper - The Greeley Tribune - brought her to Colorado. She attended the University of Denver's Sturm College of Law, where she served as an Articles Editor on the Water Law Review and competed on the National Appellate Advocacy Team.
Ms. Coulter's interest in water law stems from growing up as the fifth generation on her family farm in southeastern Idaho.
Mr. Gunn is "of counsel" at Fischer, Brown, Bartlett, Larsen & Irby, P.C. A founding member of the firm, he specializes in estate planning and trust administration, and taxation law. Mr. Gunn provides his clients with a broad spectrum of expertise in estate planning and trusts, including asset protection and generation-skipping strategies.
Mr. Gunn received his undergraduate degree from Southern Methodist University in 1970, his Juris Doctorate from the University of Denver Sturm College of Law in 1973 and his LL.M. in Taxation in 1987 from the University of Denver.
Mr. Gunn currently serves on the Board of three philanthropic organizations, and also is a past president of the Community Foundation of Northern Colorado.
Mr. Brown is "of counsel" at Fischer, Brown, Bartlett, Larsen & Irby, P.C. Following active duty military service (Captain, judge advocate, USAF), Mr. Brown has practiced law in Fort Collins since 1969, with an emphasis in water law and related matters. Mr. Brown has extensive experience in water court litigation and has appeared as a speaker or panelist at various conferences regarding water law related topics. Over the years, he has participated in numerous water rights and water quality matters that have had statewide significance.
Throughout his career, Mr. Brown has been actively involved in the water law community. He is currently on the boards of the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District and Municipal Subdistrict, and is the Subdistrict's vice president. He served as the South Platte River Basin's representative on the Colorado Water Conservation Board, 1998-2000, and served as chair of that body.
He was a member of the South Platte Basin Water Roundtable from the time of its founding until 2007. He has been involved in the affairs of the Colorado Water Congress since 1979. During the early 1980's he was a member of the Water Quality Advisory Committee of the Larimer-Weld Council of Governments. Mr. Brown has taught and lectured regarding water law at Front Range Community College and Colorado State University. He has been president of the Larimer County Bar Association, and was awarded that organization's "Professionalism Award" in 2000. He has served on both the Board of Governors and the Executive Committee of the Colorado Bar Association.