Allison Hartwell Eid (born 1965) is the 95th Justice of the Colorado Supreme Court, having been appointed to the post in 2006 by Republican Governor Bill Owens.[1]
Born in Spokane, Washington,[2] Eid earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in American studies with distinction in 1987 from Stanford University, where she was a member of the Phi Beta Kappa honor society. After graduating, she served as a Special Assistant and Speechwriter to President Ronald Reagan's Secretary of Education, William Bennett. She left the Department of Education to attend the University of Chicago Law School, where she was articles editor of the law review and was elected to the Order of the Coif before earning her Juris Doctor with high honors in 1991.[1][3]
After graduating from law school, Eid served as a law clerk for U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Jerry Edwin Smith and then for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. After completing her clerkships, she went on to become a commercial and appellate litigator at the law firm of Arnold & Porter. In 1998, she left Arnold & Porter to serve as an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Colorado Law School, where she taught courses on constitutional law, torts, and federalism.[1][3]
In 2002, President George W. Bush appointed Eid to serve on the Permanent Committee for the Oliver Wendell Holmes Devise, which writes the history of the U.S. Supreme Court and sponsors the Oliver Wendell Holmes Lecture.[1][3][4] In 2005, Republican Governor Bill Owens appointed Eid to serve as Solicitor General of Colorado.[5] A year later, Owens appointed Eid to serve as the 95th Justice of the Colorado Supreme Court.[1] In 2008, 75% of Colorado voters voted to retain Eid on the Supreme Court.[6][7]
Eid met her husband, Troy, when he was standing in line at a Stanford University dorm cafeteria while she was working as a student food service worker and he was editor-in-chief of the student newspaper, The Stanford Daily; she later said: "It was love at first sight in the meal card line."[8] In 2006, a few months after Allison Eid was appointed to the Colorado Supreme Court, President George W. Bush appointed Troy Eid as the 41st United States Attorney for the District of Colorado and the first Arab-American U.S. Attorney in the country's history.[1][9][10] The Eids reside in Morrison, Colorado with their son Alex and daughter Emily.[11][12]
| Legal offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Rebecca Love Kourlis |
Associate Justice of the Colorado Supreme Court March 13, 2006–present |
Incumbent |