Merit Bennett

Merit Bennett, Esq., is the founding attorney of The Bennett Law Group, Santa Fe, New Mexico. Supported by decades of experience, he practices personal injury, civil rights, and employment discrimination law. Mr. Bennett has served clients in various legal disciplines, such as contracts, real estate transactions, business formation, divorce, estate planning, and criminal defense. He has defended juveniles charged with felonies while employed with Pikes Peak Legal Services in Colorado Springs, Colorado, under a federal Law Enforcement Assistance Administration grant. Subsequently, Mr. Bennett served as a Colorado Public Defender and defended adults charged with felonies. Following that, he engaged in general private practice in Colorado Springs, Ouray, and Montrose, Colorado. For the past twenty-five years, he has led employment discrimination in the workplace and whistle-blowers-related cases. Mr. Bennett also has extensive experience in representing childhood/clergy sexual abuse victims (over 100 matters against the Catholic Church and other religious denominations) and victims of exposure to pesticides, mold, chemicals, or other toxins. Mr. Bennett and his former partner, Steve Tinkler, obtained million-dollar jury verdicts in a sexual harassment case against Wal-Mart and a pesticide exposure case against Terminix International. In 2016, he garnered a multi-million-dollar settlement against the Honolulu Police Department for race and gender discrimination against three of its police officers. In 2004, his daughter, Talia Kosh, joined the firm and has expanded the practice to include art, trademark, copyright, entertainment, and non-profit organization law.

 Mr. Bennett earned his Bachelor of Science in Western European Area Studies and proficiency in French, German, and Spanish from the United States Air Force Academy in 1969. Following his sophomore year at the Academy, he was selected to attend the German Air Force Academy in Neubiberg, Germany as a summer exchange student. Then, Mr. Bennett graduated from the United States Army Airborne (Parachute Training) School in Fort Benning, Georgia, and earned his Airborne Wings after five jumps in full battle gear. An avid sportsman, he partook in the varsity wrestling team and the rugby team of the Air Force Academy. Mr. Bennett also gained accomplishments in judo & unarmed combat and earned the expert marksman medal. In 1972, he obtained his Master of Political Science from the University of Colorado. For his thesis, The Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs: the development of the Role of This Executive Office in the Decision-Making Process and its Impact on Governmental Operation, Mr. Bennett interviewed Clark Clifford, lawyer, and political advisor to Presidents Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Jimmy Carter, in Washington, D.C. Subsequently, in 1975, he obtained his Juris Doctor from the Washington College of Law at the American University in Washington, D.C. His law review research topic, The Entrapment Debate: From Sorrells and Sherman to Russell, received the Washington College of Law Best of Clinical Program Award at graduation. After obtaining his law degree, Mr. Bennett prosecuted criminal cases under the supervision of an Assistant State’s Attorney in Prince George’s and Montgomery Counties, Maryland. As an expert in his field, he has taught a Continuing Legal Education Ethics Course for the New Mexico State Bar and authored two books, Law and the Heart, A New Paradigm and Legal Professionalism, Fifty Words That Strike the Heart.