Profiles of Success: Pat Hall

• Publication year: 2002
• Pages: 23
• Citation: Vol. 31 No. 5 Pg. 23

31 Colo.Law. 23 Colorado Lawyer 2002.

2002, May, Pg. 23. Profiles of Success: Pat Hall

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Vol. 31, No. 5, Pg. 23

The Colorado Lawyer
May 2002
Vol. 31, No. 5 [Page 23]

Features

Profiles of Success: Pat Hall
by Doris B. Truhlar

Doris B. Truhlar, Littleton, is a partner in the firm of Truhlar and Truhlar and concentrates in the area of domestic relations?(303) 794-2404

Pat Hall

Pat Hall never dreamed when she took a course in Indian Law at Arizona State University Law School in 19751 that the subject would be the beginning of a rewarding career that would allow her to be part of a different culture. Hall is a partner with Maynes, Bradford, Shipps & Sheftel in Durango, which acts as counsel to the Southern Ute Indian Tribe. Her work for the tribe emphasizes tribal gaming personnel, contracts, social services, and criminal justice issues. Only the fourth woman to practice law in Durango when she arrived in 1979, Hall now practices at the largest firm in that community (a general practice firm with nine attorneys). The firm emphasizes water law and Indian law

Law School and Beyond

The first person in her family to graduate from college, Hall is particularly appreciative of the opportunity that she had to receive an education. Neither of her parents graduated from high school. Hall's father had only an 8th-grade education and was a bakery delivery person. Her mother, who went through the 10th grade before being required by her parents to take a job, was a homemaker for some time and then became co-owner of a bar in Phoenix. Her parents moved to Arizona in 1947 from Oak Park, Illinois.

A native of Phoenix, Hall graduated with distinction from Arizona State University with a Bachelor's Degree in English in 1970. Hall's sister Rosemary helped her finish her undergraduate degree by assisting with the care for Hall's son, Christopher, when he was a baby. Her two sisters and mother live in Phoenix and have assisted her in many ways and at various points in her life. She recalls that the first year of law school was "truly horrible." She was poor and could not work due to the demands of law school. Hall remembers that when she was "behind in the reading," which seemed like all the time, friends in her study group helped her. Hall feared that she would flunk out because the work was so overwhelming. Of course, she did well, and was in no danger of...