Davis Award Recipient John T. Lee Reflects on a Career Elevated by Community Service
| Publication year | 2023 |
| Pages | 58 |
PROFILES IN SUCCESS
By Haley Hemen
Lee, a first assistant attorney general at the Colorado Department of Law in
Association, and the Davis family to a Denver lawyer who is 40 years old or younger and combines excellence as a lawyer with civic, cultural, educational, and charitable leadership.
For this year's Davis Award winner, John T. Lee, making a positive impact in and out of the courtroom has become the heart of his career. "During my first few years as an attorney, I was very focused on my legal work. Representing crime victims in appellate courts is a weighty responsibility. But fairly early into my career, I was drawn to opportunities to serve the community. The more I did, the greater the urgency I felt to do more. And it was some years later when I realized that I wanted to strive to have an equally significant impact both in and out of the courtroom."
Throughout his career, Lee has taken on a variety of roles in the community. His first board position was with the Sangre de Cristo Arts Center and Children's Museum in Pueblo, which Lee calls "the perfect first board experience. It's an incredibly welcoming and collaborative board all focused on trying to make sure that the Arts Center achieves its mission of making the arts accessible for everyone. It's been a pleasure to see just how big of a role the Arts Center has on the Pueblo community."
Lee has also enjoyed serving an administrator for the Denver Bar Association's Waterman Fund. The Waterman Fund is a charitable trust that provides direct financial support to lessen the burdens of Colorado lawyers experiencing hardship due to age, infirmity, or other incapacitation. "The administrators are a small group of volunteer lawyers who spend their free unforeseen difficulties in their lives."
In light of the last few years, which saw us cut off from each other in dramatic, unprecedented ways, Lee says the pandemic has certainly shown him the importance of being creative in the ways we try to make our communities stronger. "The pandemic took away many of the natural ways we connect with one another. It highlighted for me the need to find different avenues for pursuing community involvement."
Lee has also been a board member and officer of CBA-CLE, the educational arm of the Colorado and Denver Bar Associations. "I've been...
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