Mile-high lawyer, and then some

Health-care costs continue to escalate, society grows increasingly litigious, jury awards are often incredible, and, as a consequence, malpractice insurance premiums are astronomical.

So it is somehow satisfying to know that Robert Montgomery '56 is out there defending beleaguered physicians and health-care facilities.

Montgomery is founder and senior partner of Montgomery, Little, Young, Campbell & McGrew in Denver. Recently selected to be general counsel of the Colorado Medical Society, he has spent most of his career defending doctors and hospitals.

The Denver Business Journal recently quoted Montgomery, talking about his first major negligence case in 1960 when a patient fell out of a Denver hospital bed: It took quite a bit of creative energy to prove that the hospital had taken every reasonable precaution, including guard rails on the bed, to get out of that suit."

Success bred success. Mounting referrals and a staggering case load led Montgomery into partnership in 1965 with David Little, a classmate at the University of Denver College of Law, creating a firm which has grown to 29 attorneys. Montgomery's experience and reputation also led to the presidency of the Colorado Defense Lawyers Association and chairmanship of the negligence section of the Colorado Bar. He's a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, has chaired the Colorado Chapter of the American Board of Trial Advocates, and is a member of the International Association of Defense Counsel.

When Bob Montgomery isn't testing the scales of justice he is often scaling the peaks of Colorado—he's already conquered more than 40 of the 53 that exceed 14,000 feet. Good training was membership in the Dartmouth Mountaineering Club. He is also an avid bird watcher and has traveled from the Aleutians to Africa in quest of particularly rare species. With their children—Mark, Beth, and Brad—now grown, Bob and Marty Montgomery took up square dancing two years ago.

Clearly, his liberal arts education at Dartmouth, which whetted his desire "to learn as much as I could about as much as I could," provided a firm foundation not only for a successful career in the law but also for a life rich with a variety of interests.