Remembering Justice Melissa Hart: A Force of Nature, A Splendid Torch

“This is the true joy in life: Being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one, being a force of nature… I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it what I can. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.” – George Bernard Shaw

We at IAALS are deeply saddened by the loss of former Colorado Supreme Court Justice Melissa Hart last week. She was a force of nature, with boundless energy and momentum that has driven people, ideas, action, and system change nationally and locally in Colorado for decades. The loss of that force is felt deeply and broadly. 

After clerking on the United States Supreme Court for Justice John Paul Stevens and practicing law for several years in Washington, D.C., Justice Hart returned home in 2000 to Colorado where she taught at the University of Colorado Law School. I was privileged to be one of her first students and to have known her over the course of her career, from teacher to director of the Byron R. White Center for the Study of American Constitutional Law to her appointment to the Colorado Supreme Court in 2017. She continued to teach while serving on the court, both at the University of Colorado Law School and the University of Denver Sturm College of Law, and her teaching and scholarship included a focus on access to justice, constitutional law, judicial decision-making, legal ethics, employment discrimination, and civil procedure. She brought her brilliant intellect, commitment to the rule of law, and deep devotion as a public servant to her role on the Colorado Supreme Court from 2017 to 2025. 

As impactful as she was both as a teacher and as a jurist, she worked tirelessly in many ways beyond these roles in her advocacy for access to justice. She served as a trustee of the Legal Aid Foundation Board from 2014 to 2017. She served as the Colorado Supreme Court’s liaison to the Colorado Access to Justice Commission during her tenure on the Court, along with the Pathways to Access Standing Committee and the Standing Committee on Family Issues. She was a critical supporter of the creation of Colorado’s Licensed Legal Paraprofessionals (LLPs), who provide limited legal services in certain types of domestic relations cases. She was a member of the Colorado Women’s Bar Association Foundation Board and was a founding Board member of Legal Entrepreneurs for Justice, which prepares talented and entrepreneurial lawyers and LLPs in Colorado to launch and manage innovative, socially conscious, and successful law practices. She was a leader in legal education, and she was serving as the current chair of the Council of the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, the national accrediting body for legal education. 

I had the great fortune to hear her speak many times one-on-one, in committee settings and working sessions, and in large speaking venues about her deep commitment to preserving the rule of law and serving the public. She was particularly concerned with access to civil justice for those of low- and middle-income in our state and nationwide, as well as making the family law system work for self-represented litigants. She spoke about her calling to join the bench to address these issues and make a difference, and to put fairness, access, and the people who depend on the system at the heart of all her efforts to ensure justice for all. 

She made listening to her community and the voice of individuals who are navigating the justice system a priority. On the Colorado Access to Justice Commission, she helped lead multiple listen-and-learn tours to assess the most pressing civil legal needs in Colorado and the barriers residents face in navigating the justice system. In 2021, she led virtual community conversations with stakeholders in each of the state’s 22 judicial districts, providing critical insights into current challenges and potential solutions in the state. In 2025, she was instrumental in repeating this effort, holding 22 listening sessions across the state. 

Her work spanned the civil justice system, as IAALS’ work does, including civil justice and family justice reform, leadership through the judiciary, legal education, licensure, and the delivery of legal services. She worked tirelessly both in Colorado and at a national level. This is a broad net, as we know so well in our own work at IAALS, and it is a very unique individual who is able to work across so many different areas of justice system improvement and to be impactful across all at once. She was a key partner with IAALS, from supporting LLPs in Colorado, leading family justice rule reforms in the state, partnering on process improvements particularly for high-volume cases, and leading in national legal education and accreditation efforts. The impact of her work, and the loss that is felt both locally and nationally, is reflective of the extent of positive impact she was able to achieve across our system.

“Lawyers are problem-solvers,” Hart said in a 2017 Q&A for the University of Colorado School of Law. “When you can work on solving problems that are the largest social problems, or the problems of people whose needs are the most significant, it feels like you are using the special skills and knowledge for the greatest good. There is nothing more satisfying.”

Justice Hart was a champion for access to justice and remains an inspiration to all of us to be problem solvers, advocates, and forces for change. She cared deeply for others, brought extraordinary energy, passion, and hard work to everything she did, stood steadfastly behind those around her, and never stopped believing that meaningful change was possible. 

I had the incredible privilege of calling her a teacher, mentor, colleague, neighbor, and friend. She was a force in this community and a force in my own life, and she will be greatly missed. She carried a brightly lit torch for this work, fueled by a deep sense of purpose and a commitment to something larger than herself—and she was always willing to share its light, inviting others into the work and inspiring them to carry it forward. There remains much work to be done, but her light lives on in the people she taught, mentored, supported, and inspired, and in all those who will now carry that torch forward for the generations to come.