Baird Quinn LLC

Focus and practice areas

Baird Quinn LLC works in employment, labor and commercial law from an office near downtown Denver. The firm calls itself a boutique, and its two attorneys handle the caseload themselves.

Employment work sits at the centre. The site names wrongful discharge, discrimination, harassment, retaliation, wage and hour claims, overtime compensation, sexual harassment, whistleblower actions and FMLA claims. Colorado Wage Act and FLSA matters appear repeatedly across the pages.

Contract-adjacent employment disputes form a second cluster. Non-competition and non-solicitation agreements, trade secrets and sales commission recovery all get their own treatment on the practice pages. Commission disputes are a narrower category than most employment firms advertise, and putting it front and centre tells a reader something about the kind of file the firm expects to see.

Beyond the employment file

The firm also takes business and commercial litigation. It advises management on union and labor relations issues, which is a distinct skill set from individual discrimination claims and one that fewer small firms carry.

How the team is built

Two attorneys run Baird Quinn LLC: J. Mark Baird and Beth Doherty Quinn. The firm was formed in 1998 as a boutique employment practice, so the structure has held for a long stretch.

J. Mark Baird is in his 32nd year of practice. He graduated with distinction from the University of Iowa in 1986. Before the firm opened in 1998, he was a Senior Trial Attorney at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and he practiced at Sherman & Howard, LLC and at Watson, Ess, Marshall & Enggas.

That EEOC background matters for a reader weighing an employment claim. Time inside the agency that investigates discrimination charges gives a lawyer a working picture of how those charges get screened, assigned and pushed toward resolution. In my opinion it is one of the more useful credentials on the page, because it is specific and verifiable.

Baird is admitted in the State of Colorado, the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado, the Tenth Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court. He represents individuals and businesses in employment, labor-management and commercial matters.

Beth Doherty Quinn

Quinn has practiced law for 23 years. She came to the firm from Brownstein Hyatt & Farber, P.C., a larger Denver firm.

Her focus is employment and commercial litigation in federal and state court. The site lists her matters as discrimination, harassment and retaliation claims under Title VII, the ADEA, the ADA, the FLSA and the FMLA. She also handles state wage claims, trade secret disputes, non-compete matters, wrongful discharge and breach of contract cases.

The two practices overlap heavily. Both attorneys litigate employment claims in the same courts under the same statutes, which suggests a firm where either lawyer can pick up a file and know the terrain.

Where the work happens

The site is direct about the forums. Both attorneys try cases before state and federal judges and juries. They also appear in arbitration, including matters before AAA and FMCS arbitrators.

Administrative practice is a named part of the work. The firm appears before the EEOC, the U.S. Department of Labor and the National Labor Relations Board. FMCS and NLRB appearances line up with the labor relations side of the practice, since those bodies handle union and collective bargaining questions.

Internal investigations round out the list. That work usually comes from the employer side, and it fits a firm that takes instructions from both directions.

Who the firm acts for

Baird Quinn LLC represents employees and employers. The site describes clients ranging across individual executives and large employers.

Firms that act for both sides are less common in employment law than firms that pick a lane. As a reviewer, I read the dual-side practice as a practical advantage: a lawyer who has defended a wage and hour claim knows how the defence will be built when the same lawyer later brings one.

Geographic reach and setting

The firm is based in Denver and represents clients in Colorado and throughout the United States. Federal employment statutes travel, and admission to the Tenth Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court supports work beyond state lines.

The office occupies the Bushong Mansion near downtown Denver. It is an unusual choice of building for a law office, and it signals a firm that has settled somewhere and stayed.

What the record shows

The strongest signal here is the specificity of the practice list. Sales commission recovery, Colorado Wage Act claims, non-solicitation agreements and FMCS arbitration are the sort of detail a firm writes when it actually handles those matters.

The credentials are dated and checkable. A 1986 degree from the University of Iowa, a 32nd year of practice, 23 years for Quinn, named prior employers at Sherman & Howard, Watson, Ess, Marshall & Enggas, Brownstein Hyatt & Farber and the EEOC. Each of those points to a public record a prospective client can look up.

Some things the site leaves out. It gives no titles for either attorney, no law school for Quinn and no bar admission years. Those are ordinary gaps on a small firm's website and none of them touches the substance of what the firm handles.

My reading of the listing is that Baird Quinn LLC suits a person or a business with a defined employment dispute in Colorado, particularly one turning on wages, commissions, a non-compete or a discrimination charge. The firm has run with the same two lawyers since 1998, both of them litigating the same statutes in the same courts.