Charles F. Luce, Jr.

Growing up in the Pacific Northwest, Charles let his imagination fly. Years later, Charles’ life is still soaring – literally and figuratively – as an accomplished pilot, musician, and as an intellectual property and ethics attorney.

A tenacious advocate, Charles counsels clients of every size on trademarks, copyrights, computer technology, Internet law, licensing, contracts, and other areas of intellectual property.

Merging passions for music, theatre, technology, literature, and law, Charles is uniquely suited to help technology companies, artists, and entertainers protect and defend their technology and artistic assets. While still in law school, his article, “Look What They’ve Done to My Song!,” an analysis of the Copyright Act’s compulsory license for audio recordings from a composer’s point of view, won ASCAP’s copyright law writing competition at the University of Oregon. The same year, “Scuttling the Air Pirates: Theories of Pay Television Signal Theft Liability,” became the first published comprehensive analysis of legal remedies available for the misappropriation of cable and satellite television transmissions.

Years and dozens of publication credits later, Charles continues to mix legal insight and humor in pieces for The Colorado Lawyer, such as “Spam and Cookies: How to Avoid Indigestion While Binging at the World Wide Automat” and “The Matrix Unloaded: Coping with Computer Spyware.”

Charles is also a recognized authority in the “law of lawyering” and an expert witness in legal ethics. With more than 36 years of experience, he advises and assists both attorneys and law firms with risk and law firm management strategies, professional responsibility issues, client relationships, and ethics issues arising in litigation. A frequent lecturer and author on legal ethics, Charles provides creative counsel on:

·       Law firm formation

·       Mergers and dissolutions

·       Business structure

·       Advertising

·       Client issues

·       Ethics

·       Bar admissions

·       Hiring scenarios

·       Malpractice standards

·       Partnership disputes

·       Risk management assessments to ensure compliance and enhance profitability

Combining his interests in technology and the law of lawyering, in the 1990’s Charles launched Charles Luce on Legal Ethics and the Practice of Law, the first website devoted to Colorado legal ethics, now hosted at ColoradoLegalEthics.com.

When not working, Charles may be found piloting his 1964 Cessna Skylane through the Rockies, courtside at the University of Colorado women’s basketball games, researching Colorado’s early aviation history, or playing half a dozen musical instruments. Together with his wife and three daughters, he supports three dogs, four lovebirds, and an African grey parrot named “Sherlock“ at their home in rural east Boulder County. Charles enjoys playing and listening to jazz and classical music, and the works of Charles Dickens, Jasper Fforde, Kurt Vonnegut, and Bill Bryson.

• J.D., Order of the Coif, University of Oregon
• B.A., With distinction, University of Colorado

• 5280 Magazine Top Communications and Technology Lawyer, 2018 – 2020
• Best Lawyers^®: Copyright Law, 2014 – 2024; Ethics and Professional Responsibility Law, 2023 – 2024; Trademark Law, 2023 – 2024; Trade Secrets Law, 2024
• Frequent lecturer for CLE, CBA, CBI, NBI, and other entities
• Martindale-Hubbell Rating: AV^® Preeminent™ (highest)

• Charles F. Luce, Jr. on Legal Ethics and the Practice of Law blog
• Presenter, “I Am Not Your Attorney: Ethics Issues in the Representation of Organizations,” Colorado Rural Electric Association, October, 2022
• Presenter, “The Five Most Dangerous Rules of Professional Conduct,” Pueblo County Bar Association, May, 2022
• Presenter, “Cheezo: Aged to Perfection (The Joy of Pretext under Rule 8.4(c)),” 1st Judicial District Bar Association, October, 2021
• Presenter, “Ethics Lessons from the Cockpit,” Mile High Chapter of the Association of Legal Administrators’ (ALA) Annual Law Firm Management Luncheon, October, 2021
• Author, “It’s Open Season on Soliciting Business Owners,”  Law Week Colorado, August, 2021
• Co-Presenter, “Revised Rule 8.4 (c): Everything You Wanted to Know About Pretext, but Were Afraid to Ask, ” CBA-CLE Ethics 7.0, November, 2019
• Presenter, “Attorney Ethics of E-mail and Texting: Essential Do’s and Don’ts,” National Business Institute Webinar CLE, August, 2019
• Presenter, “Legal Ethics of Handling Digital Documents,” National Business Institute Webinar CLE, October, 2018
• Presenter, “Ethics: Opinion Letters,” CLE International, Public Financing – Infrastructure for New Development and Redevelopment, April, 2018
• Quoted, “Ethics Rule Change Proves Divisive,”  Law Week Colorado, October, 2017
• Author, “Cheezo Unit Prompts Potential Rules Change,” Law Week Colorado, September, 2017
• Quoted, “The Return of Cheezo,” Law Week Colorado, February, 2017
• Author, “Making Molehills Out of Mountains,” Law Week Colorado, March, 2016
• Author, “The Biggest Social Media Mistakes Made by Lawyers,” Law Week Colorado, September, 2015
• Author, “Would You Like Some Garnish on that Retainer?,” Law Week Colorado, October, 2014
• Presenter, “Ethics of Social Media,” CLE in Colorado program entitled “Hanging Your Shingle: Your Future Begins Now”, August, 2014
• Presenter, “Cloud-y, with a Chance of Data Leakage: Practical Advice for Protecting Client Data and Your License,” CLE, Colorado’s Real Estate Symposium, July, 2014
• Presenter, “Ethics and Technology: Hot Mouse Button Issues,” CLE in Colorado, April, 2014
• Presenter, “Ethics: Staying out of Trouble,” CLE International program entitled “Public Financing: The Next Generation in Colorado,” April, 2014
• Quoted, “Marijuana Companies Try to Protect the Intellectual Property of Their Pot Brands,” com, March, 2014
• Presenter, “Ethics and the Use of Technology in a Transactional Practice – Social Media, Cloud Computing, Email, Protecting Client Data,” Colorado Bar Association CLE live program and webcast entitled “Preventing Legal Malpractice 2014,” January, 2014
• Presenter, “Ethics and Social Media: What Attorneys Need to Know,” NBI Seminar, December, 2013
• Presenter, “Legal Ethics for Paralegals: The Impact of Social Media,” NBI Audio Webinar, December, 2013
• Presenter, “Prospective Clients: Avoiding the Rule 1.18 Trap,” CLE International program entitled “ETHICS: Keeping Up in Changing Times,” December, 2013
• Author, “Make sure you know when (and how) to fire a client,” Denver Business Journal, July, 2013
• Quoted, “5 Tips for Lawyers Representing Lawyers,” com, June, 2013
• Quoted, “How to avoid copyright infringement,” com, February, 2013
• Quoted, “Law of Lawyering: A Burgeoning Field,” Law Week Colorado, February, 2013
• Presenter, “Professional Liability with the Use of Social Media,” CLE in Colorado program entitled “Preventing Legal Malpractice 2013: Protecting Yourself and Your Clients,” February, 2013
• Presenter, “Hot Intellectual Property Issues for the Business Law Attorney,” CLE, Colorado’s Business Law Institute, November, 2009
• Author, “What the Matter with Metadata?,” 36 The Colorado Lawyer113, November, 2007
• Author, “The Matrix Unloaded: Coping with Computer Spyware,” 34 The Colorado Lawyer125, September, 2005
• Author, “Internet Privacy: Spam and Cookies – How to Avoid Indigestion While Binging at the World Wide Automat,” 27 The Colorado Lawyer, October, 1998

• Colorado Bar Association, Ethics Committee
• Denver Bar Association

• Colorado
• U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
• U.S. District Court – District of Arizona
• U.S. District Court – District of Colorado
• U.S. District Court – Northern District of Illinois
• U.S. Supreme Court