Christine Arguello was born at home in Thatcher, a small Colorado town where her father worked as a railroad laborer.
Arguello says her father aspired for more — for himself and for his girl — who he called “the smart one.”
At age 36, Arguello’s father left the railroad behind and realized his future would improve if he went to barber school. He eventually opened his own barbershop in Buena Vista.
Arguello’s father hoped she would become the family’s first doctor and when she told him she got into Harvard, he asked why she wasn’t going to medical school.
“My dad did not know what Harvard was,” she said.
It wasn’t until an Air Force Academy cadet told her dad that he would trade places with her at any time that her dad figured out she was attending one of the most prestigious schools in the country.
“He was the proudest father,” she said.
Arguello’s dad died three years ago, but he lived long enough to see her become the first minority to make partner at the Denver firm Holland & Hart and later become chief deputy attorney general during Ken Salazar’s tenure as Colorado’s attorney general.
Arguello will be the first Latino to serve on Colorado’s federal bench — a job her father knew she would eventually get.
“I have been able to have it all,” she said.
Arguello and her husband, Ron, have four children — Ronnie, 23, Tiffany, 18, Jennifer, 13, and Kenny, 11.
When Arguello isn’t working, she loves to be with her family playing Scrabble in a cabin in the mountains with no TV, no computers and no phone.
Raised a Democrat with a photograph of President John F. Kennedy hanging on the wall of her family’s home, Arguello says she is capable of putting her personal political beliefs aside when making legal decisions.
While working as a private lawyer, Arguello said she did ask to be removed from some cases she did not agree with, but learned that there is more than one side to every story.
“You gain perspective and learn that there are different views to everything,” she said.
Arguello — currently managing senior associate counsel at the University of Colorado — considers her time as a law professor at the University of Kansas as one of the highlights of her career.
“It was something different,” she said. “I enjoyed molding the next generation of law students.”
She also co-wrote a case book on evidence that is widely used by law schools around the country.
Arguello believes that when she dons her robe and takes the bench, she will be objective and open-minded.
“A judge needs to be respectful of everyone in the courtroom, and a judge needs to be decisive,” she said.
Arguello does not consider herself a “big rule person,” but said she will expect attorneys to be prepared and act professionally.
She is excited about learning more about federal criminal cases and says she will ask fellow new judge Philip Brimmer, currently a federal prosecutor, to help her learn the ropes.
“He said he would help me with that,” she said.
Felisa Cardona: 303-954-1219 or fcardona@denverpost.com
