Thomas D. Colin

The Honorable Thomas D. Colin (Ret.) handles matters statewide, including all aspects of traditional client representation, litigation and Alternative Dispute Resolution services as an arbitrator, mediator, special master, and private judge. He leads the mediation/arbitration department at Siegel, Colin & Kaufman, P.C. and is often asked to serve as an expert in Connecticut and other states. His mediation settlement rate is over ninety-five percent. 

Judge Colin returned to private practice in 2018 after spending five years as a trial court judge handling primarily family and criminal matters, including serving as the presiding judge for family matters in the judicial district of Stamford/Norwalk at Stamford, where some of the nation’s most financially sophisticated divorce cases are heard. As a family court judge, he presided over the court docket and heard and mediated many cases involving complex financial issues, particularly in the financial services/investments field, as well as many child custody matters. He also regularly presided over the weekly domestic violence criminal court docket and served on the Connecticut Judges Institute Education Committee and the Evidence Oversight Committee of the Supreme Court. His duties as a judge included handling criminal jury and bench trials, family court trials, probation violation, suppression and firearms safety hearings, arraignments, pretrial settlement conferences in both family and criminal cases, mediations in family cases, and all of the usual and customary matters heard by a trial court judge. 

 

Prior to becoming a judge, Judge Colin had an extraordinary amount of trial and mediation experience throughout the state of Connecticut in complex child custody and financial divorce related matters. He has handled many high-profile cases involving spouses and individuals in the entertainment, sports, medical, legal and finance industries. Other attorneys frequently hire him for their own representation. 

 

Throughout his career, Judge Colin has developed a reputation as both a seasoned and tenacious litigator, willing to try the most difficult of cases when a reasonable out-of-court settlement cannot be reached. Other family law attorneys often bring Judge Colin in as co-counsel on difficult cases. His experience as an attorney and judge provides him with a unique skillset and perspective that his peers trust and value. 

 

In addition, Judge Colin has a vast amount of experience in negotiating prenuptial and postnuptial agreements and litigating their enforceability. In 2007, he served as lead trial counsel for the successful parent in what was reportedly the longest child custody trial in United States history. He is a former President of the Connecticut Chapter of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, and Chair of the Family Law Sections of both the statewide Connecticut Bar Association and the Fairfield County Bar Association. 

Judge Colin is an adjunct professor at the Quinnipiac University School of Law where he has taught both basic and advanced family law, including family trial practice. He has lectured and taught nationally and in Connecticut to many groups, including judges, lawyers, law students and family services counselors, and also appeared on a nationally syndicated talk show as a legal analyst to discuss and demonstrate divorce mediation. His teaching topics generally involve family law, evidence (including electronic, social media and other computer related evidence) and trial practice. 

 

Judge Colin received his Juris Doctor degree from the St. John’s University School of Law in 1992. After completing law school, Judge Colin served as a law clerk for Justice Paul L. Rudman of the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine. Judge Colin then joined the law firm of Cummings & Lockwood in Stamford, Connecticut, where he worked in the corporate/civil litigation department. He thereafter became a founding member and partner in a Greenwich Connecticut family law firm until he was appointed by Governor Dannel P. Malloy to be a Superior Court Judge.