Lange, Gregory L.

Ms. Underhill has practiced law for over 25 years. She enjoys a general law practice concentrated on small businesses and professionals. The firm handles business acquisitions and formations, governance issues, and other matters for small and closely held businesses. They also represent small businesses and their owners in franchise relationships, employment matters and litigation and handle a wide variety of other litigation in the federal and state courts. Throughout her career, Joanne has been involved in many issues involving financial institutions, including governance, regulatory compliance and commercial litigation.

The firm has handled a significant number of "business divorces" involving shareholder and partnership rights and disputes. Ms. Underhill has also been involved in legal and accountant malpractice lawsuits, litigation to enforce the federal Clean Water Act, federal employment discrimination litigation, lawsuits over forged endorsements on bank checks, coverage disputes with fidelity bond and liability insurance carriers, letter of credit claims, and lawsuits between and among participants in troubled commercial loans. She has experience with the investigation and litigation of claims against former officers, directors and accountants for failed financial institutions on behalf of federal banking agencies.

Ms. Underhill has experience in appellate work as well as in other types of complex legal and factual litigation, including antitrust and government regulatory matters. She was a Trial Attorney (1983-1986) and Assistant General Counsel (1986) in the Office of General Counsel of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board and the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation, where she had principal litigation responsibility for the liquidations of insolvent savings and loan associations. She served as the lead trial and appellate attorney for the FSLIC and FHLBB in Guaranty Savings and Loan Association v. Federal Home Loan Bank Board, 794 F.2d 1339 (8th Cir. 1986) (challenge to appointment of FSLIC as receiver for an insolvent financial institution) and as principal government appellate attorney in Federal Home Loan Bank Board v. Empie, 778 F.2d 1446 (10lh Cir. 1985) (state advertising laws).

Ms, Underbill was among the first women undergraduates at Yale University, receiving a B.A. cum laude in 1973. She received her J.D. degree cum laude from The American University Washington College of Law in 1979. Prior to attending law school, she was a member of the staffs of Senator John Tunney (D-Calif.) and Congressman Norman Mineta (D-Calif.) and ran a public opinion poll in San Jose, California, Ms. Underhill is admitted to the Colorado and District of Columbia bars. She is a member of the American, Colorado and Arapahoe Bar Associations and the Colorado Women's Bar Association.

She served by gubernatorial appointment as the public member of the Colorado State Board of Accountancy during 1993-99. Ms. Underhill chaired the Colorado Women's Leadership Coalition, a statewide consortium of 85+ women's organizations, during 1996-97. She has also served on the boards of the Colorado Women's Chamber of Commerce and the Colorado Women's Bar Association and is a member and past chair of the Greenwood Village Parks, Trails and Recreation Commission. Ms. Underhill received "The Power of One" Award at the Colorado Woman '98 Conference and in 1997 was named as a Woman of Distinction by Girl Scouts Mile Hi Council. She was admitted to the registry of Marquis Who's Who in America (1998 edition). She has also appeared in the Denver Business Journal's Who's Who Among Women in Business in Denver.