David W. Robbins

in Denver, Colorado

Practice Areas:

Water and Natural Resources
Water Quality
Environmental

David Robbins is president and co-founder of Hill & Robbins, P.C. His areas of specialty are water and natural resources law, water quality, and environmental law. Before founding the firm, Mr. Robbins served in the U.S. Army from 1969 to 1972 (Captain) and with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region VIII from 1973 to 1974.

From 1975 to 1977, Mr. Robbins worked in the Colorado Attorney General’s Office as a First Assistant Attorney General and head of the Natural Resources Section, and he held the position of Deputy Attorney General from 1977 to 1978. During his tenure at the Attorney General’s Office, Mr. Robbins represented the State of Colorado in a multitude of interstate water matters, and served as counsel to the state engineer in adjudication proceedings and in trials regarding basin-wide rules and regulations. He represented the Colorado Water Conservation Board, and successfully defended the constitutionality of the state’s first in stream flow protection law.

Mr. Robbins has served as general counsel to the Rio Grande Water Conservation District since 1981. He has fought to defeat speculative proposals to mine the ground water of Colorado’s San Luis Valley (AWDI v. City of Alamosa). As a result of this proceeding, Mr. Robbins drafted the bill to create the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve. He serves as general counsel to the Republican River Water Conservation District, as special counsel to the Southwest Water Conservation District and as outside counsel to Colorado Springs Utilities. He has also served as counsel of record for the State of Colorado in the U.S. Supreme Court case of Kansas v. Colorado, No. 105 Original (October Term, 1985), since 1985, which deals with the Arkansas River Compact.

Mr. Robbins served on the Colorado Water Conservation Board from 1980 to 1989, and was its chairman in 1985 and 1986. From 1979 to 2003 and from 2007 to the present, he served as a member of the Colorado River Salinity Control Forum and the Colorado River Salinity Control Advisory Council. Mr. Robbins was the Forum’s chairman from 1984 to 1990, and its vice chairman from 1981 to 1984 and 2001 to 2003.

He has been on the board of directors of the Colorado Water Congress for many years, and is a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers and the American Bar Foundation. He is also a past chairman of the Water Law Section of the CBA.

Admitted to Practice
Colorado
California

Education
B.A., Stanford University (1966)
J.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison (1969)