Thomas D. Colin

The Honorable Thomas D. Colin (ret.) handles matters statewide, including all aspects of traditional client representation, litigation and Alternative Dispute Resolution services as an arbitrator, mediator, special master and private judge. He leads the mediation/arbitration department at Siegel, Colin, & Kaufman.

In 2018, Attorney Colin returned to private practice after spending five years as a trial court judge handling primarily family and criminal matters, including serving as the presiding judge for family matters in the judicial district of Stamford/Norwalk at Stamford, where some of the nation's most sophisticated financial family law cases are heard. As a family court judge, he presided over the court docket and heard and mediated many cases involving complex financial issues, particularly in the financial services/investments field, as well as many child custody matters. He also regularly presided over the weekly domestic violence criminal court docket and served on the Connecticut Judges Institute Education Committee and the Evidence Oversight Committee of the Supreme Court. His duties as a judge included handling criminal jury and bench trials, family court trials, probation violation, suppression and firearms safety hearings, arraignments, pretrial settlement conferences in both family and criminal cases, mediations in family cases, and all of the usual and customary matters heard by a trial court judge.

Prior to becoming a judge, Attorney Colin had an extraordinary amount of trial and mediation experience throughout the state of Connecticut in complex child custody and financial divorce related matters. He has handled many high-profile cases involving spouses and individuals in the entertainment, sports, medical, legal and finance industries. In fact, other attorneys frequently hire Tom as their own representation.
Throughout his multi-decade career, Attorney Colin has developed a reputation throughout the state as both a seasoned and tenacious litigator, willing to try the most difficult of cases when a reasonable out-of-court settlement cannot be reached. Other family law attorneys often bring Attorney Colin in to co-counsel difficult cases. His experience as an attorney and a judge provides him with a unique skillset and perspective that his peers trust and value.

In addition, he has a vast amount of experience in negotiating prenuptial and postnuptial agreements and litigating their enforceability. In 2007, Attorney Colin served as lead trial counsel for the successful parent in what was reportedly the longest child custody trial in United States history, spanning over eight months. In addition, Attorney Colin is a former President of the Connecticut Chapter of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, and Chair of the family law sections of both the statewide Connecticut Bar Association and the Fairfield County Bar Association.

Attorney Colin is an adjunct professor of family law at the Quinnipiac University School of Law where he has taught both basic and advanced family law, including family trial practice. He has lectured and taught nationally and in Connecticut to many groups, including judges, lawyers, law students and family services counselors, and also appeared on a nationally syndicated talk show as a legal analyst to discuss and demonstrate divorce mediation. His teaching topics generally involve family law, evidence (including electronic, social media and other computer related evidence) and trial practice and many are noted below.

Attorney Colin received his Juris Doctor degree from the St. John's University School of Law in 1992. After completing law school, he served as a law clerk for Justice Paul L. Rudman of the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine. Attorney Colin then joined the law firm of Cummings & Lockwood in Stamford, Connecticut, where he joined two legends in the field of family law, Samuel V. Schoonmaker, III and Cynthia Coulter George, in the firm's family law practice group. Along with Attorney Colin, Attorneys Schoonmaker and George formed Schoonmaker, George, and Colin in 1996, which was known as Schoonmaker, George, Colin, Blomberg, Bryniczka, and Welsh, prior to Tom joining Siegel, Colin, and Kaufman.