Rebecca Love Kourlis

Rebecca Love Kourlis
Former Colorado Supreme Court Justice

Rebecca Love Kourlis has dedicated her career, both in and out of the courts, to working to ensure that our legal system provides justice for all. She served Colorado’s judiciary for nearly two decades, first as a trial court judge and then as a justice of the Colorado Supreme Court.  In 2006, she resigned from the Supreme Court to found IAALS, the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System, an applied research institute dedicated to improving delivery of justice.  She resigned from IAALS in 2019, and together with two other attorneys has now started Aegis ADR, a boutique alternative dispute resolution firm where she does arbitration, mediation and public policy dispute resolution.

Her legal expertise is rich and diverse. She began her career with the law firm of Davis Graham & Stubbs, and then started a small practice in rural northwest Colorado where she worked in natural resources, water, public lands, oil and gas, and mineral law. She later affiliated with Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in their Denver office.

 In 1987, she was appointed as a trial court judge with a general jurisdiction docket. She served as Water Judge and later as Chief Judge of the district. She was appointed to the Colorado Supreme Court in 1995.

 Justice Kourlis has received numerous individual honors, including the American Bar Association (ABA) Justice Center's 2012 John Marshall Award, the ABA Judicial Division’s 2009 Robert B. Yegge Award for Outstanding Contribution in the Field of Judicial Administration, and the 2008 Regis College Civis Princeps citizenship award. She was honored by the Girl Scouts of Colorado as a 2006 Woman of Distinction, and was chosen by the League of Women Voters of Colorado to receive their 2015 Leader of Democracy award. Justice Kourlis and her husband Tom were named the 2010 Citizens of the West by the National Western Stock Show. 

 She currently serves on the Boettcher Foundation Board of Trustees, and chairs the Colorado Forum Committee on Agriculture.

 Justice Kourlis earned a B.A. in English from Stanford University with distinction and a J.D. from Stanford University Law School. She and her husband, Tom—a businessman and cattle and sheep rancher—have three children. She is a Colorado native and daughter of former Governor John A. Love.