The Sutton Booker family sadly announces the passing of “one of the good ones” – our senior counsel Joel Babcock. We celebrate and remember Joel along with all who had the honor of knowing him. Joel made an immeasurable impact on our firm with his depth of knowledge, his reliability, his approachability, and his willingness to take on the “impossible” cases. “Ask Joel” has been our response for the better part of a decade whenever there was a legal question that stumped others or a case that seemed too complicated to unravel.
Having spent 13 years in private practice at a Denver litigation defense firm, where his practice included a wide range of civil litigation filed both in district court as well as in administrative settings, Joel was a proven trial attorney. He also handled cases through the appellate system, arguing cases at the Colorado Court of Appeals and Colorado Supreme Court.
Immediately prior to joining Sutton | Booker | P.C., Joel switched to in-house counsel, supervising outside counsel defending first and third-party litigation in Colorado as well as in other western region states. He provided legal advice, training and guidance to the claims department and other internal business units in addition to preparing adjusters, claim/branch managers, and other company representatives for depositions and trial testimony.
Joel provided mentorship, both to our firm’s team members and to the broader legal community, investing his time and energy in the professional development of the next generation. We will miss his parenting advice, his special recipe pepper jelly, and his Friday fun facts. Sharing a couple of his fun facts seems a fitting way to pay tribute.
- If you have ever wondered why the moon seemed to fit perfectly over the sun, well, wonder no more: The diameter of the moon is about 400 times less than that of the sun, and as it turns out, the moon just so happens to be about 400 times closer than the sun. As such, these two factors combine to explain why they appear to be almost identical in size from the earth.”
- This fun fact has to do with several sports programs at the University of Denver, where I went for both undergrad and law school. Unknown to many, DU actually had a very viable football program for 75 years from 1865 until 1960. In fact, it began with a game against Colorado College in 1885, which is believed by many to have been the very first intercollegiate football game west of the Mississippi River. The football program ended in 1960, presumably due to the advent of the original AFL and the birth of the Denver Broncos in 1960, but may also have been based on DU yielding to the hockey program that began in 1949. The success of the DU hockey team has been nothing short of monumental, in that DU Hockey has won nine national championships, more than any other NCAA hockey team, and matched only by Michigan. (The national titles were won in 1958, 1960, 1961, 1968, 1969, 2004, 2005, 2017, and 2022). While one might think that I would do something to honor the extreme success of the hockey program, for reasons that I still cannot explain (other than the hockey team never did much during my time at DU), I somehow remain stuck on an idea that I came up with while I was there in the early-mid 1980’s, which was to order a custom t shirt printed with the following slogan: “DU Football: Undefeated since 1961.” This is technically true, and that “record” is now even far more impressive than when we first joked about it back in the ‘80s!