Abrams and Associates Lawsuit: Sanctions, Appeal, and License

The Abrams and Associates lawsuit history that draws public attention centers on Robert E. Abrams, the managing partner of the Denver construction and business litigation firm Abrams & Associates, LLC, who has been sanctioned twice by Colorado’s Presiding Disciplinary Judge. The first case, decided in February 2020, produced a stayed three-month suspension for using an anti-gay slur about a judge in an email to clients and for billing a client for time spent on his own disciplinary defense. The second, approved in November 2024, resulted in an eighteen-month suspension — six months served, twelve stayed — for harassing a former client, breaching client confidentiality online, and pursuing frivolous claims. A Colorado Supreme Court decision in between, In re Abrams, upheld the constitutionality of the state’s anti-bias rule for lawyers.¹

The 2020 Sanction: Slur About a Judge and Billing a Client for His Own Defense

The first disciplinary case grew out of Abrams’s representation of Michelle and Gary Bales, who hired him in 2015 to sue their former builder over a failed steel-frame garage project in Centennial. The case was filed in Arapahoe County District Court as Bales v. Hewitt, and although Abrams eventually secured a default judgment of $200,654.73 for the Baleses in July 2017, the attorney-client relationship collapsed over billing disputes and the involvement of a Florida-licensed attorney, Nicoli Pento, who was not admitted in Colorado.²

During the litigation, Abrams developed a negative view of the presiding judge, Phillip Douglass. After a March 2016 case management conference, he sent his clients an email referring to Judge Douglass with a derogatory anti-gay slur. A former employee later testified that Abrams used similar slurs about the judge in the firm’s office on a regular basis.²

When the Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel opened an investigation in December 2017 based on the Baleses’ grievance, Abrams billed the couple $897.00 for time he and his staff spent preparing his response. He did not credit those charges for thirteen months, issuing the credit only after regulators sent a formal inquiry in February 2019.²

On February 12, 2020, the hearing board in case 19PDJ036 found Abrams had violated two Colorado Rules of Professional Conduct. Under Rule 8.4(g), the board concluded he had knowingly used a term he understood to be a derogatory reference to sexual orientation, and it rejected both his argument that the slur was meant only to call the judge a “weakling” and his First Amendment defense. Under Rule 1.5(a), the Presiding Disciplinary Judge granted summary judgment, ruling that billing a client for the attorney’s own disciplinary defense is unreasonable as a matter of law because the duty to respond to a disciplinary investigation is personal to the attorney. Abrams was suspended for three months, with the entire suspension stayed on the condition that he complete an eighteen-month probation that included cultural sensitivity training.³

The Colorado Supreme Court Appeal

Abrams appealed, arguing that Rule 8.4(g) was unconstitutionally overbroad and vague under the First and Fourteenth Amendments. On June 7, 2021, in In re Abrams (case 20SA81), the Colorado Supreme Court unanimously rejected both arguments and affirmed the sanctions. The court held that the rule serves compelling state interests in regulating attorney conduct during client representation, protecting participants in the legal process from harassment and discrimination, and eliminating expressions of bias from the profession. It found the rule narrowly tailored because it reaches only conduct that occurs during client representation, is directed at someone involved in the legal process, and exhibits or intends to engender bias. The court noted the rule does not prohibit criticism of judges, so long as discriminatory language is avoided.⁴

On the vagueness question, the court wrote that “any objective person would find that Abrams’s specific use of an anti-gay slur in communicating with his clients about the presiding judge violated” the rule.⁵ The decision drew national attention because it is one of the few instances where a court has upheld an anti-bias disciplinary rule based on an actual case rather than a hypothetical challenge. Colorado’s Rule 8.4(g) has been in effect since 1993 and, at the time of the ruling, had been used to discipline only four other lawyers.⁴

The 2024 Sanction: Harassing a Former Client

The second disciplinary case, filed as consolidated matters 23PDJ063 and 24PDJ041, involved a different former client and a series of incidents in late 2022 and early 2023.⁶

In September 2022, Abrams moved for default judgment in a fee collection case against the former client despite repeated notice from the client’s attorney that service of process had failed, supported by doorbell camera footage. He later argued at trial that service had been “effectuated by refusal.”⁷

The following month, Abrams encountered the former client at a Denver restaurant and yelled, “I will take your f***ing house.” The client was represented by counsel at the time, which made the direct contact itself a violation of the professional conduct rules. Less than a week later, Abrams filed a writ of attachment against the client’s home, alleging the client was trying to “bleed out equity” to thwart debt collection.⁷

In late 2022 or early 2023, Abrams posted online comments identifying the former client by name and profession, calling the client “a liar and a crybaby,” and disclosing details of the fee dispute. On the same platform, he disclosed that a separate individual had consulted his firm but had been turned down because she wanted to bring “a small case for free.”⁸

Abrams stipulated to violating four rules of professional conduct: Rule 1.6(a), for revealing client information without consent; Rule 1.9(c), for using information from a former representation to that client’s disadvantage; Rule 3.1, for asserting frivolous claims; and Rule 4.2, for communicating with someone he knew was represented by counsel. On November 14, 2024, the Presiding Disciplinary Judge approved the stipulation and imposed an eighteen-month suspension, with six months to be served and the remaining twelve stayed on the condition that Abrams complete a two-year probation. The suspension took effect December 19, 2024.⁷

Other Litigation Involving the Firm

Outside the disciplinary docket, Abrams & Associates has appeared as a party in a construction-related civil case, Abrams & Associates, LLC v. Star Builders, LLC and Aaron LaPedis, filed in Denver District Court as case 23CV541. The firm appealed to the Colorado Court of Appeals (24CA2223), and the defendants cross-appealed. On December 31, 2025, the Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court’s judgment in an unpublished opinion.⁹

License Status

Abrams’s six-month active suspension began December 19, 2024, and would have concluded around June 2025. His Avvo profile lists his license status as “Active” with a notation of the 2024 disciplinary action.¹⁰ If reinstated, he remains subject to a two-year probation under the terms of the 2024 stipulation. No publicly available records in the research show a reinstatement petition or published probation compliance reports.⁷

1
Findlaw. In Re Robert E. Abrams, 20SA81
2
Colorado Office of the Presiding Disciplinary Judge. People v. Robert E. Abrams, Opinion Imposing Sanctions, 19PDJ036
3
Findlaw. People v. Abrams, 19PDJ036
4
First Amendment Watch. Colorado Supreme Court Rejects First Amendment Challenge to Lawyer Disciplinary Rule
5
American Bar Association. ABA Model Rule 8.4(g) Then and Now
6
Colorado Bar Association. People v. Abrams
7
Colorado Office of the Presiding Disciplinary Judge. Stipulation to Discipline, 23PDJ063 and 24PDJ041
8
Law Week Colorado. Colorado’s PDJ Suspends Attorney After He Called a Former Client a Crybaby, Yelled Profanity at the Client in a Denver Restaurant
9
Colorado Judicial Branch. Court of Appeals Announcements
10
Avvo. Robert Abrams, Attorney