Bob Yates

Adjunct Faculty

401 UCB
2450 Kittredge Loop Drive
Wolf Law Building
Boulder, CO  80309
E-mail: Robert.Yates@colorado.edu

Curriculum Vitae:  View (PDF format)

Bio:
Bob Yates practiced law for 25 years, first as a partner in a medium-sized Midwest law firm, then as assistant general counsel for Level 3 Communications, a Fortune 500 company. Over the course of that practice, Bob negotiated and closed more than 200 company acquisitions and corporate mergers in the U.S. and overseas, totaling more than $10 billion in value, in industries as varied as oil and gas, meat packing, real estate, software, publishing, food and beverage, construction, and telecommunications. Typically working on the buy side, Bob led teams of lawyers in due diligence investigations, negotiated and drafted definitive agreements, and procured regulatory approvals from a variety of governmental authorities, including European regulatory agencies, the Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Communications Commission, and state public utilities commissions.

Bob is a 1986 graduate of the University of California, Hastings College of the Law. He has taught as an adjunct professor and guest lecturer at the University of Colorado and the University of Denver in areas of leadership, local government, transactions, and law firm administration. Bob is currently an adjunct professor at CU Law for the spring semester 2021 to teach Mergers and Acquisitions in the Deal Labs program, a course which will allow law students to build on their prior lecture and textbook learning by engaging with classmates in hypothetical merger and acquisition transactions, identifying issues, negotiating terms and conditions, and drafting transaction documents.

In 2011, Bob retired from the practice of law to spend all of his time in community service to his adopted hometown of Boulder, Colorado. After serving on a dozen nonprofit and community boards, Bob was elected to the Boulder City Council in 2015 and re-elected in 2019, serving in 2020 as Boulder's Mayor Pro Tem. He has been married since 1983, and he and his wife, Katy, have two grown sons who live in Brooklyn; the younger one is a lawyer practicing in the field of tenants' rights.

Courses:

Spring 2021 Deals Lab LAWS 6271-801
Spring 2018 Deals Lab LAWS 6271-002