Kevin Cheney did not set out to build the largest personal injury practice in Colorado. He set out to build the right one. There is a difference, and it shows in how the firm operates — in the cases it takes, the clients it serves, and the standard it holds itself to when the insurance company on the other side has more resources, more lawyers, and a financial model built around paying as little as possible. Cheney, a Super Lawyer and managing partner at CGH Injury Lawyers, has spent his career in Denver making that imbalance the central problem his practice exists to solve. "It's more than money," the firm's guiding principle states. "It's about helping people rebuild their lives." That conviction is not a tagline. It is the operating premise behind every case the firm takes and every decision it makes on behalf of the people who trust it with the hardest moments of their lives.
Formally Cheney Galluzzi and Howard, the firm operates out of Denver's Five Points and RiNo district and serves clients across Colorado — from the Front Range to Fort Collins, Colorado Springs, Grand Junction, and the mountain communities in between. Director of Litigation Tim Galluzzi, partner Travis Howard, Director of Pre-Litigation Nicole Greene — herself a Super Lawyer — and partner Robert Lawrence make up a team that has earned Top 50 and Top 20 Verdicts recognition in Colorado for multiple consecutive years, along with Best of Denver and Best of Colorado distinctions. Those results are not incidental. They are the product of a firm that prepares every case as if it is going to trial, because the insurance companies across the table know whether or not an attorney is actually willing to go there — and that knowledge shapes every negotiation that comes before it.
For anyone in Denver who has been seriously injured and is trying to understand what a personal injury firm actually does — and what separates one that produces results from one that processes claims — here is how Cheney and his colleagues think about that work.
What a Personal Injury Firm Actually Does — And Why It Matters Who You Choose
"People think all personal injury attorneys do the same thing," Cheney says. "They don't. The difference between a firm that settles everything quickly and one that is genuinely prepared to litigate shows up in outcomes — in the dollar amount on the check, in whether the client got the medical care they needed, in whether the full scope of what they lost was ever actually put on the table."
The range of cases CGH Injury Lawyers handles reflects the range of ways that negligence produces serious harm in people's lives. Car, truck, and motorcycle accidents represent the largest volume — collisions that happen on Colorado's roads every day and that range from straightforward liability disputes to complex multi-party cases involving commercial vehicles, federal regulations, and insurance coverage structures designed to minimize payouts. Wrongful death cases, which the firm handles with particular care, require not only legal rigor but a level of human attentiveness that the technical demands of litigation can sometimes crowd out. Catastrophic injury cases — traumatic brain injuries, spinal cord damage, severe burns — demand a different kind of preparation entirely, one that accounts for a lifetime of consequences rather than the immediate medical bills that are easiest to document.
Premises liability is another significant part of the firm's practice. When a landlord ignores a broken staircase, when a business fails to address an icy walkway that has been reported multiple times, when a property owner's decision not to invest in adequate security leads directly to a violent crime — those are not accidents. They are the foreseeable results of choices made by people with a legal obligation to do better. The firm's $1.025 million slip and fall result and its $699,000 recovery in a falling icicle case reflect what it looks like when that argument is made effectively, with the evidence and the preparation to back it up.
Ski accident cases are a category that sets CGH Injury Lawyers apart from most personal injury practices in the country. Colorado's mountain resorts generate a specific and legally complex category of injury claims — reckless skiers, lift malfunctions, resort negligence — that require familiarity with both the physical environment and the legal frameworks that govern liability on the mountain. For injured skiers and snowboarders who assume that a resort's liability waiver closes the door on any claim, the firm's experience in this area is often the first piece of genuinely useful information they receive.
Rideshare accidents involving Uber and Lyft round out a practice area that has grown significantly as these platforms have become embedded in daily life. The insurance coverage that applies to a rideshare collision depends on the driver's status at the moment of the crash, and the platforms have structured their policies specifically to limit exposure. An injured passenger or third party navigating that structure without legal guidance is almost always at a disadvantage — and the firm's familiarity with how rideshare insurers operate is a meaningful asset in those negotiations.
What Denver Residents Need to Understand About Personal Injury Claims
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Colorado operates under a modified comparative fault system, which means that if an insurance company can establish that an injured person was partially responsible for the incident that hurt them, it can reduce — and above a certain threshold, eliminate — the compensation they are entitled to receive. That legal reality is one of the most consequential things a Denver resident can understand before they engage with an insurance company after an injury, and it is one of the reasons why the narrative established early in a claim matters so much.
Insurance adjusters are trained to gather information that serves the company's interests. The recorded statement they request in the days after an injury, the early settlement offer that arrives before the full extent of the harm is known, the framing of the incident that assigns shared fault to the injured party — these are not neutral processes. They are the opening moves of an adversarial system that most injured people do not recognize as adversarial until it is too late to change the record.
CGH Injury Lawyers operates on a contingency fee basis — no fee unless they win — which means the financial barrier that keeps many injured people from seeking legal help does not apply here. Free consultations are available by phone, video, or in person, and the team will travel to a client's home or hospital when the situation requires it. Cheney is direct about the urgency. "Evidence disappears fast. Surveillance footage gets overwritten. Witnesses become harder to find. The window for preserving what makes a case winnable is narrow, and it starts closing the moment the injury happens." That is not a sales pitch. It is an accurate description of how personal injury cases are won and lost in the real world.
The firm's reach across Colorado also matters in ways that Denver residents do not always consider. An injury that happens on a ski trip to Summit County, a crash on I-70 between Denver and Grand Junction, a premises liability incident in a mountain town — these are all cases that CGH Injury Lawyers is equipped to handle, with the statewide relationships and local knowledge that effective representation in those jurisdictions requires.
What to Look For When Choosing a Personal Injury Firm in Denver
Choosing a personal injury attorney is a decision most people make once, under pressure, without a clear framework for evaluating their options. A few questions cut through the noise.
Ask about the firm's experience with your specific type of case. Personal injury is a broad category, and the legal frameworks, liable parties, and insurance structures involved in a car accident are genuinely different from those in a premises liability case, a ski accident, or a wrongful death matter. A firm that handles all of these regularly brings a depth of pattern recognition that a generalist practice cannot replicate.
Ask about the firm's trial record. The settlement value of any personal injury claim is shaped by what the insurance company believes will happen if the case goes to a jury. A firm with documented verdicts — Top 50 and Top 20 results in Colorado — negotiates from a position that a firm without that record simply cannot match. Ask specifically: how many of your cases go to trial, and what do your results look like when they do?
Ask how the firm values a case. An attorney who accounts for future medical care, lost earning capacity, and non-economic damages — not just the bills already incurred — is building a claim that reflects the full scope of what an injury actually costs. One who focuses only on what is easiest to document is leaving value on the table, and that gap shows up in the final number.
Finally, ask how the firm communicates. A personal injury case can take months or years to resolve, and a client who cannot reach their attorney when a decision needs to be made is not being well represented, regardless of the firm's credentials. Responsiveness is not optional — it is the baseline of a functioning attorney-client relationship.
A Firm Built Around What Comes After
Serious injuries change lives. The medical bills are the part that is easiest to quantify — the part that shows up on paper and can be added up. What is harder to put a number on, but no less real, is the job that becomes impossible to perform, the family that absorbs the financial and emotional weight of a long recovery, the future that looks different than it did before. CGH Injury Lawyers was built for that full picture — for the people who need someone who understands that the legal case is not the end of the story, but the mechanism by which the rest of the story becomes possible.
Cheney and his team have spent years proving that aggressive, ethical, genuinely client-centered representation produces better outcomes than accepting what the insurance industry decides to offer. For anyone in Denver navigating a serious injury and trying to figure out where to start, that track record is worth understanding. The consultation is free, and it starts on your terms.