Bill Dorigan was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1948. After graduating from Hammond (Indiana) High School in 1966, he attended Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois, graduating in 1971. While at Augustana, Bill played varsity football and was a starting offensive lineman. After graduating from Augustana, he attended the John Marshall Law School in Chicago where he was Research Editor for the Law Review and graduated with honors in 1975. While on the Law Review Bill wrote an antitrust article and, upon his graduation, that article appeared as a lead article in the John Marshall Journal of Practice and Procedure.
After graduating from law school, Bill moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota where he practiced for over twenty years in civil litigation. Bill was a partner in the national law firm of Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi until August, 1997, at which time he moved to Colorado. While at the Robins firm, Bill practiced primarily in the areas of personal injury, construction, product liability, and intellectual property litigation. For over a decade Bill represented various private and governmental bodies across the country in construction litigation against the Dow Chemical Company concerning the use by those clients of a Dow mortar additive alleged to cause corrosion of steel embedded in masonry. Representative clients included hospitals, nursing homes, high-rise homes for the elderly, colleges, commercial offices, and other masonry buildings. As part of that effort Bill was hired by the State of Colorado's Office of Attorney General to represent the Colorado Department of Highways in litigation involving use of the Dow additive in the Eisenhower Tunnel. That representation led to a very favorable settlement on behalf of the State with the Dow Chemical Company.
While at the Robins firm, Bill developed an expertise in the Federal Racketeering statute, "RICO," and authored a lead article regarding the use of RICO against habitual corporate offenders that was published in the William Mitchell Law Review. Bill also worked on the tobacco team at the Robins firm representing the State of Minnesota and Blue Cross-Blue Shield in its successful litigation against the tobacco industry.
Bill moved to Colorado in late 1997 and was retained once again by the State of Colorado's Office of Attorney General, this time to help represent the State in its lawsuit against the tobacco industry. Drawing on his expertise from his work at the Robins firm, Bill was named as team leader in charge of Colorado's racketeering claims and was also responsible for developing the State's tobacco-related damages model. Bill was also designated by the Colorado Attorney General to serve as one of the trial counsel for that lawsuit.
Following the State of Colorado $1.7 billion settlement with the tobacco industry, Bill joined Vanatta, Sullan, Sandgrund & Sullan, P.C. on December 1, 1998. At the Vanatta firm Bill returned to his construction litigation background, focusing exclusively on residential and commercial construction litigation. In the spring of 2005, following very successful settlements on behalf of classes of homeowners in several multi-million dollar lawsuits, Bill took a sabbatical from his law practice to travel and complete a Master’s Degree in Human Development from St. Mary’s University in Minnesota (M.A. in Human Development awarded in December, 2005). Bill is now practicing law in an “Of Counsel” capacity with the Yates Law Firm in Denver.
Mr. Dorigan also has three black belts in martial arts and is a yoga instructor.
