Craig Pankratz – Utah Appellate Attorney

Craig is a seasoned appellate attorney. His education, litigation, trial, and appellate experience, broad exposure to the law, and analytic ability make him uniquely qualified. He knows how to litigate a case from initial pleadings to final judgment and through the appellate process. He is comfortable with criminal and civil law. And there is no area of law that he cannot understand and apply to a given case.

Craig’s appellate practice is rooted in a deep understanding of litigation and trials. He attended Baylor University School of Law, the “Marine Corps of law schools.” Its mission is to train attorneys who can immediately step into a courtroom and try a case. From his first to his last day, his professors drilled him in trial procedure and taught substantive subjects with litigation in mind. During his third year, he participated in practice court, which is a twenty-two-week, immersive program that teaches trial procedure and advocacy and that simulates the stresses of practice with all-day classes, advocacy exercises, and hundreds of pages of daily homework. 

Craig began his career as a prosecutor, and over two-and-one-half years, he tried twenty-three jury trials and dozens of bench trials. He then entered private practice where he litigated many types of cases involving criminal defense, real property, licensing, employment law, breach of contract, civil rights, family law, personal injury, and wrongful death. In 2016, Marcia S. Krieger, Chief Judge for the United States District of Colorado, hired him as a law clerk. Most recently, he served as a Senior Assistant City Attorney for the City and County of Denver and as an Assistant Utah Attorney General and defended public servants in civil rights and personal injury lawsuits.

Notwithstanding his extensive trial-level experience, Craig’s greatest interest is in appellate work. In law school, he participated in moot court and took every appellate course Baylor offered. The summer before he graduated, he worked as a law clerk for public defenders and wrote five appellate briefs. After that, he was hooked.

Craig began representing clients on appeal in 2011. Since then, he has participated in more than 80 cases in appellate courts, including the Colorado Court of Appeals, the Colorado Supreme Court, the Utah Court of Appeals, the Utah Supreme Court, the U.S. Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the U.S. Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, and the Bankruptcy Appellate Panel for the Tenth Circuit. And several of his cases set significant precedent. For example, in Smith v. U.S., he persuaded the Utah Supreme Court that Utah’s damages cap on noneconomic damages in wrongful death medical malpractice cases violates the Utah Constitution. In People v. Gilbert, the Colorado Supreme Court reversed a criminal defendant’s convictions after authorizing appellate courts to weigh multiple factors to determine whether a defendant’s right to counsel of choice has been violated. And in Johnson v. Staab, the Colorado Court of Appeals adopted Craig’s proposed standard for determining whether a police officer can be civilly liable for searching someone’s home under a search warrant.

Craig is passionate about appellate work and holds himself to the highest standards. He produces exceptional legal briefs and presents persuasive oral arguments. And he is excited to represent clients on appeal and to support other attorneys during litigation in trial courts to prepare cases for appeal.