Partner
Mark D.
Changaris
Legal Assistant
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 to structure 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 in 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 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 judgements and settlements, litigation in state and federal court, arbitration with the Judicial Arbiter Group (JAG), and international artbitration 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 coporate trust, coporate fraud and abuse, securitires 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

Commercial Real Estate Webinar Available
Partner, Mark Changaris, participated in a commercial real estate webinar hosted by BizWest. The webinar focused on the impacts the industry is seeing as a result of COVID-19 and what landlords and tenants should know. Changaris was joined by Damian Ederhoff, partner...

Do’s and Don’ts: Operating Agreements
Limited liability companies have many appealing qualities. Not least among them is flexibility regarding how governance, economic returns, allocations of profits and losses, and distributions can be structured. Subject to certain well-established rules,...

Changaris to Join BizWest Webinar
Partner, Mark Changaris, will be joining panelist, Damian L. Ederhoff, partner at Wipfli, in a BizWest webinar. The webinar will cover the impact commercial real estate has seen as a result of COIVD-19 and what landlords and tenants should know. As part of Mark's real...
In the News
Firm Director of Marketing Honored in the 2022 Boulder Valley 40 Under Forty
BizWest announced the 2022 Boulder Valley 40 Under Forty on May 4, 2022. Honored among the "40", is firm director of marketing, Ashley Cawthorn. She recounts her initial days with the firm and why being a part of Berg Hill Greenleaf Ruscitti was the perfect fit. "I...
Rudy Verner Moderates A Panel On Climate-Action at BizWest’s Net Zero Cities
Partner Rudy Verner joined four panelists in kicking off BizWest's Net Zero Cities event held at The Ranch Event Complex in Loveland, CO this morning, May 4, 2022. The session titled 'Climate-Action Bootcamp' was geared toward the private sector and went beyond the...
BHGR and Boulder Ballet
For nearly five years, Berg Hill Greenleaf Ruscitti has supported Boulder Ballet. We were honored to continue this tradition and support for the arts this year and look forward to the years to come. Images by Amanda Tipton Photography | FB- Amanda Tipton-Photographer...
Firm Happenings
Kathleen Alt Talks Remote Work and the Challenges Companies Might Already Be Experiencing
In an article published in the Daily Camera today, Monday, April 25, partner Kathleen Alt offers some updates on the complexities of remote work, particularly, out-of-state remote workers. Check out the article here*. Writer: Paula Aven Gladych Contributors: Kathleen...
Client Alert: Colorado – New Criminal Penalties for Employer’s Use of Illegal Non-Compete Agreements
Buried within recent legislation passed by the Colorado General Assembly lies a provision that will likely materially alter the relationship between employers and their employees. Colorado has long disfavored the restrictive covenants utilized by employers to curtail...
OSHA COVID Emergency Temporary Standard for Employers
In early September, the White House directed the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to develop and issue an emergency temporary standard (ETS) mandating that employers with 100 or more employees require employees to be fully vaccinated or submit to...