About
Industry Experience
Gene enjoys collaborating with successful entrepreneurs who are interested in promoting a new brand of business and deep sense of community. He would be honored to share his practical, actionable thought leadership and common-sense recommendations with your senior leadership team.
Gene began his legal career in 1977 with a small general practice law firm in Iowa before moving his family to Denver in 1981 to join a growing mid-sized insurance litigation firm. He became an owner of the business, served on its management committee, and learned many valuable lessons about the challenges of operating a law firm while building his own construction law practice.
He boosted his career by joining the Denver office of a regional litigation firm in 2000 to become a shareholder and leader in its rapidly growing national construction law practice group. His practice expanded greatly by providing a unique blend of general counsel and commercial litigation services to a broad segment of the Colorado construction industry.
In 2009, Gene’s firm merged with another to form a dynamic Am Law 100 national law firm with nearly 500 attorneys, which became known as Polsinelli. The expanded geographic footprint and diverse subject matter expertise of the combined firm positioned his construction law practice for further significant growth.
Gene served as the managing shareholder in Polsinelli’s Denver office from 2011 to 2015, while the firm prospered and the office achieved dramatic growth in number of attorneys, breadth of legal services, revenue and facilities. Polsinelli’s clients thrived as the firm helped to position them at the intersection of law, industry, community and public affairs.
He stepped away from the practice of law in 2015 to form Gene Commander, Inc., a commercial ADR business, where he has provided customized mediation and arbitration services to hundreds of Colorado businesses and their law firms to help them avoid the expense and uncertainty of civil litigation. Gene has learned to be an effective consensus builder and problem solver through his legal and ADR experience resolving complex construction and commercial disputes in an amicable and business-like manner.
Since 2020, Gene’s business has been primarily focused on providing proactive business counsel to law firm leaders and C-suite executives to help them implement successful business growth strategies.
Gene regularly pursues his passion for the business of law and construction by engaging in professional development efforts to bolster client growth strategies through his ongoing education, research and networking. For example, he is an associate member of the Construction Financial Management Association (CFMA) – Colorado Chapter, which allows him to provide clients access to the latest industry financial insights and information. He is also a member of the Center for Legal Inclusiveness, which allows him to introduce clients to the best practices that will create inclusive workplaces and advance diversity in the legal profession.
“Through his significant law firm ownership and management experience Gene is able to bring commonsense business counsel and creative solutions to everyday business problems. Having known Gene for much of my career, I’ve seen firsthand the integrity behind his work that has garnered his strong reputation in the legal industry.”
Experience
During his legal career, Gene handled complex litigation and arbitration before state and federal courts, arbitration panels, government agencies and a variety of ADR forums. His experience includes U.S. litigation and arbitration arising from international business transactions and projects located in Canada, Britain, Honduras and the Republic of the Marshall Islands.
Today
Gene focuses on helping businesses avoid or successfully resolve complex commercial disputes involving real estate, construction, law firm operations, insurance and related e-discovery matters. With more than 20 years of ADR experience as a third-party neutral, he has served as a neutral in more than 150 proceedings.
Recognition
Gene’s leadership extends beyond business and into the community. His distinguished credentials of city-building engagement include, most notably, his 2016 mayoral appointment to the Denver Urban Renewal Authority board of commissioners, and his role as chairperson of the internationally recognized Downtown Denver Partnership (DDP) and Denver Civic Ventures. In 2014, Gene received the Honorary Partner Award from DDP for exhibiting strong leadership and engagement for a period of more than 10 years.