|
Other Attorney Profiles
Diane MacArthur Brown
James W. Olsen
|
 |
| John R. Olsen |
John R. Olsen has been a trial attorney all of his legal career.
He graduated from the University of Denver College of Law in
1978, completing a four-year night program in two and one-half
years while working fulltime as senior staff assistant to Governor
Richard D. Lamm of Colorado. Selected for combined high
academics and legal writing, he served as general editor of
the Denver Law Journal. After working in the litigation
section of one of Denver’s largest law firms, Mr. Olsen
continued his career as a deputy district attorney in Denver,
often working on murder and insanity cases, and also handling
civil litigation for the late District Attorney Dale Tooley,
after whom his middle son is named. He has also served
as a special prosecutor in Boulder County.
Mr. Olsen’s nickname has always been “Jack,” and
he attended college on a full basketball scholarship out of
Baltimore County, Maryland, coaching basketball at many different
levels ever since, including at Fairview High School (Boulder,
Colorado) and Niwot High School (Niwot, Colorado). His
undergraduate degree was in journalism from the University
of Colorado, where he graduated on a full academic scholarship,
with honors, in 1972. He was Governor Lamm’s press
secretary during his first term. A seven-year career
in journalism at United Press International, the Denver
Post and Rocky Mountain News won him awards for
investigative reporting in Denver. His reporting resulted
in indictments, exposures of criminal activity and changes
beneficial to the public. He was encouraged to become
a journalist by his late father, Jack Olsen, who was a senior
editor of Sports Illustrated for 26 years. The
senior Olsen wrote the landmark Sports Illustrated series
and then book, “The Black Athlete,” about the exploitation
of black athletes at the nation’s universities. During
his career in journalism, the younger Olsen was encouraged
to attend law school by Dale Tooley, whose unparalleled public
service inspired others.
Having been born October 28, 1946, Mr. Olsen is presently
58 years old and has been practicing law for 26 years. During
the Vietnam War, he volunteered for military service in 1967
and scored a perfect 99 on the military entrance exam, and
then became one of the few recruits ever to score a perfect
500 on the physical training course at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. He
volunteered for the advance team of the 5th Battalion 46th
Infantry going to Chu Lai, Vietnam (south of Danang) in 1968. President
Lyndon Johnson personally reviewed the battalion (in Texas
prior to departure) and declared it to be the best-trained
infantry unit ever to enter the Vietnam War. Ninety days
later, it had lost one-half of its men and all of its officers
killed or wounded. In one firefight outside of My Lai
(a year after the so-called My Lai Massacre), Olsen commanded
an infantry company pinned down and then extracted because
of being under strength by 50 per cent due to casualties and
lack of replacements. On May 23, 1968, Olsen was hit
in the neck by shrapnel and seriously wounded during a firefight
near An Loc, Vietnam. He received the Purple Heart and
Bronze Star.
Olsen returned to combat duty in Quang Ngai Province, later
graduated from the Special Forces Recondo School in Vietnam,
finishing second in his class, and joined the all-volunteer
Americal Division airborne rangers in Chu Lai, later renamed
Company G (Ranger) 75th Infantry. It was a long-range
patrol unit, the so-called “eyes and ears of the Americal.” After
the war, Mr. Olsen spent months at the National Records Center
and years elsewhere declassifying documents and researching
the causes of the military blunders and lack of support that
destroyed his line infantry unit and wounded or killed so many
of his friends and subordinates. He assisted the CBS
television network and Mike Wallace (and testified in pre-trial
deposition) in the United States District Court case of Westmoreland
v. CBS in New York. Olsen found and declassified
secret diplomatic communications relating to the method by
which the Viet Cong were counted, Congress and the American
people were informed (or not), and resources were limited in
America’s losing effort in Vietnam. He also testified
as to first-hand experiences on the ground in Quang Ngai Province.
The above paragraph is included in this web site for the benefit
of hundreds of veterans or their next of kin who are seeking
information about old units, AOs (areas of operation), incidents,
or seeking colleagues relating to their Vietnam service in
order to deal with the personal impact of, and wounds from,
that war. Olsen is a member of the LRRP Ranger Association. He
is considered an expert on free fire zones, friendly fire incidents,
command and control errors, and the investigation thereof. This
nonlegal work is on a pro bono (free) basis. His
MOS in the military was infantry operations and intelligence
specialist. He served on a long range reconnaissance
patrol team (LRRP) in “I” Corps and from Nha Trang
northward, as far west as the borders with Cambodia and Laos. Inquiries
from veterans on any topic are welcome, and Mr. Olsen will
personally respond to every one. His telephone number
is (303) 652-1133 in Colorado and (212) 349-7800 in New York. Mr.
Olsen divides his time between those two offices.
As a lawyer, Mr. Olsen has faith in the American justice system
and juries, which is the keystone of his practice. His
wife is a trial lawyer, and his elder son, James, the former
captain of his college basketball team, is a partner in the
law firm, trial lawyer and graduate of Emory University and
the University of Denver College of Law. He is admitted
to practice in both Colorado and New York. Mr. Olsen’s
middle son went to college on a baseball scholarship, is presently
a senior at the University of Puget Sound (and is a future
trial lawyer). Mr. Olsen’s daughter, age thirteen,
wants to be either a pro basketball player or a veterinarian.
Mr. Olsen was licensed to practice law in Colorado in 1979
and in New York in 1988. He is admitted to practice before
numerous state and federal courts, including the United States
Supreme Court. Mr. Olsen has defended multi-million dollar
cases and also won million-dollar jury verdicts, including
multi-million dollar verdicts in Colorado and New York (one
more than $2.5 million, another more than $10 million). He
has also informed many clients when bringing a case was a bad
idea. His advice to individuals and businesses is tailored
to the facts and law, straightforward and measured. He
believes and teaches that respect for the court system, the
judges, their staffs and their work, is part of the essential
fabric of a just society under law. Legal advice is tempered
with realism. The aim is sound counsel, effective advocacy
and successful outcomes. Courtesy is a hallmark of the
practice.
|
