Partner

Mark D. 

 

Changaris

Legal Assistant

Tonya Geiwitz

Mr. Changaris helps his clients achieve their business and strategic goals across a wide variety of practice areas and industries, including complex litigation, construction law, corporate law, intellectual property, and real estate.  As a solutions-driven, pragmatic advocate, Mr. Changaris is a trusted advisor for his clients and values building long-term relationships to help them succeed.  Additional details regarding his experience and professional qualifications are set forth below.  When Mr. Changaris is not practicing law, he is an avid hiker, mountain biker, and skier and will often be found on the trails in Boulder and Summit County, Colorado.

Experience

Construction Law

As part of Mr. Changaris’ construction law practice, he assists owners, contractors, subcontractors, and suppliers in connection with a wide variety of projects, with a special emphasis on EPC contracts and design-build contracts. He works on residential developments, industrial facilities, maintenance structures, mining infrastructure, and school construction. His involvement has included negotiating agreements, assisting clients in structuring proposed transactions, counseling clients to mitigate risk, filing and foreclosing mechanics’ liens, and helping clients evaluate and resolve contract disputes and related conflicts.

Corporate Law

As part of his corporate transactional practice, Mr. Changaris counsels clients on a broad array of business matters, including entity formation, corporate governance, tax planning, mergers and acquisitions, asset sales, stock issuances, private placements, financing, and debt or equity offerings. Mr. Changaris assists clients by negotiating and drafting loan and financing documents, security agreements, employment agreements, and non-compete and non-disclosure agreements. His transactional experience spans multiple industries, including construction, mining, software development, manufacturing, and advertising.

Intellectual Property

Mr. Changaris assists clients with trademark, copyright, and patent-related matters in many different fields, including information technology, software, advertising, product manufacturing, product distribution, and merchandising. In the technology field, he assists clients with drafting and negotiating license agreements, including Software as a Service (SaaS) agreements, development agreements, and professional services agreements. In the products manufacturing and construction fields, he helps clients implement contracting standards and forms, negotiated distribution agreements, drafted risk management documents, assisted in the development of product warranties and claims procedures, and assisted in the protection of intellectual property rights. Mr. Changaris also assists clients in enforcing and protecting their intellectual property rights through copyright, trademark, and patent litigation.

Litigation

Mr. Changaris counsels clients through all phases of dispute resolution, including informal business-to-business negotiations, stipulated judgments and settlements, litigation in state and federal court, arbitration with the Judicial Arbiter Group (JAG), and international arbitration with the Internation Chamber of Commerce (ICC). His cases have involved complex commercial disputes, insurance coverage disputes, breach of contract, civil theft, environmental contamination, CERCLA, NEPA, real estate disputes, mechanics’ liens, construction defects, breach of fiduciary duties or corporate trust, corporate fraud, and abuse, securities fraud, including Rule 10b-5 of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934, SEC enforcement actions, fraudulent transfers, foreclosures, and landlord-tenant disputes.

Real Estate

As part of his real estate transactional practice, Mr. Changaris assists clients with their residential and commercial real estate needs, including residential and commercial leasing, purchase and sale agreements, all phases of due diligence (including title review), financing, oil and gas, and 1031 exchanges. Mr. Changaris also assists both borrowers and lenders with negotiating and drafting loan documents, security instruments, and related transactional documents, including defeasance agreements. In addition, he assists property owners, lenders, landlords, and tenants with forcible entry and detainer actions (eviction proceedings), public trustee foreclosure actions, and creditor rights in bankruptcy.

EDUCATION & ADMISSIONS

JURIS DOCTOR

UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO SCHOOL OF LAW, 2008

BACHELOR OF SCIENCE 

FORT LEWIS COLLEGE, 2005 (SUMMA CUM LAUDE)

U.S. District Court, District of Colorado

2008

U.S. District Court, Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals

2008

Colorado

2008

Professional Associations

American, Colorado and Boulder Bar Associations

 

Languages Spoken

English

Spanish

 

Honors & Awards

University of Colorado School of Law Honors:

Order of the Coif

Dean’s List

Austin Scott Jr. Scholarship (awarded for academic excellence)

Fort Lewis College

Honors:

Dean’s List

National Collegiate Natural Sciences Award

Tri-Beta Biological Honor Society

Mark’s Blog

In the News

BHGR Partnership Expands with 2023 Elections

The Berg Hill Greenleaf Ruscitti partnership gathered at our Boulder office on January 31, 2023. In that meeting, attorneys Geoff Williamson and Benjamin Wilson were elected Equity Partners, and Elizabeth Froehlke and DJ Goldfarb were elected Non-Equity Partners,...

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