Over two decades ago, Timothy P. O’Hara walked into the Chicago courtroom of Judge Thomas More Donnelly and auditioned in a mock trial for a legal fellowship program Donnelly directed. O’Hara appeared to be a natural trial attorney, Donnelly and the other coaches agreed, but they identified one problem.

“Our head coach put it bluntly: ‘Tim, would you be willing to cut off your ponytail to join the team?'” Donnelly recalled. “There was a moment of hushed silence. All eyes fell on Tim. Without missing a beat, he said, ‘Sure!'”

Donnelly spoke on Friday at the Alfred A. Arraj U.S. Courthouse in downtown Denver for O’Hara’s ceremonial swearing-in as a magistrate judge on Colorado’s federal trial court. O’Hara is one of the seven full-time magistrate judges, and he officially joined the bench in October as the successor to now-U.S. District Court Judge S. Kato Crews.

“I’ve had some wonderful moments. I had a plaintiff who felt more comfortable in a settlement conference with me speaking Spanish,” said O’Hara. “I’ve had lawyers who came into a contested hearing ready to fight and left shaking hands.”

In contrast to the district judges, who the president nominates and the U.S. Senate confirms for life, magistrate judges are screened by a selection panel, hired by the district judges and serve for eight-year terms. They tend to focus more on administrative and preliminary matters, but can perform most of the same functions as the district judges, including handling civil cases on their own.

O’Hara’s ceremony, known as an investiture, featured several light-hearted moments, as multiple speakers commented on O’Hara’s affability and sense of humor.

“He’s been a soccer coach for kids for a long time. As a matter of fact, a large number of letters in his application materials to be a magistrate judge came from the soccer parents,” said U.S. District Court Chief Judge Philip A. Brimmer. “We were lobbied by the soccer moms and stuff.”

O’Hara grew up in Michigan, where he said he knew from an early age he had the “ability to speak passionately in public without putting people to sleep.”

He attended Boston College, where he performed in the comedy group “Hello… Shovelhead!” O’Hara then went to law school at Loyola University Chicago. There, he played in a band called “More Cowbell,” named after a well-known Saturday Night Live sketch. Along the way, O’Hara lived in Spain, Costa Rica and Mexico and visited more than a dozen other countries.

From law school, he worked as a public defender in Chicago. Donnelly, a Cook County circuit judge, said O’Hara had litigated more than 130 full trials in his career. Donnelly called O’Hara an “amphibian” — someone who had successfully changed environments.

“He’s tried cases in both federal and state court. Both criminal and civil. He’s been a trial lawyer and an appellate lawyer. He speaks in English and Spanish. He’s both practiced law and taught law,” Donnelly said.

“Not only did Tim have a lot of cases, he had the worst case a defender could ever have: Actually innocent clients facing murder charges,” Donnelly continued. “Moreover, sometimes in Chicago — and I’m sure this never happens in Denver — he’d be assigned to judges who nobly worked to assist the state in convicting guilty defendants. And viewed Tim’s insistence on a jury trial as a needless obstruction.”

After Virginia L. Grady became the head of the federal public defender’s office for Colorado little more than a decade ago, O’Hara was her first hire. Speaking at the investiture, Grady said O’Hara enjoyed hunting for answers to legal questions and is “one of those rare people who can fall into the deepest of rabbit holes and come back with a rabbit.”

“As one of his former colleagues says about Tim, Tim is 100% Ted Lasso,” she added, referring to the optimistic and folksy soccer coach played by Jason Sudeikis in the television show of the same name.

During his remarks, O’Hara became emotional when speaking of his mother, who died in a car accident in 2001. He also attributed to his father his belief that “every time I walk into a room, it’s an opportunity to meet a new friend.”

As for his time as a public defender, O’Hara said the description of his role in Chicago was to be “Einstein on roller skates.”

“I was one of 400 or so lawyers in that office. I went into it to make sure that indigent clients didn’t just get competent legal counsel. That they got great legal counsel,” he said. “I’ve had cases where individuals’ lives were completely destroyed as the result of a false criminal charge. And I was able to prove they were false.”

Brimmer, the chief judge, noted O’Hara had started in “one of the most infamous places in the entire country” for criminal justice.

“Early on, Tim said to me, ‘I really am impressed you guys are reading the motions first,'” Brimmer said. “I have the utmost respect for state judges. It’s not that they’re lazy or anything. They just don’t have time. … I always figured if you could survive being a public defender in Cook County, will anything surprise you after that? Probably not.”

In attendance at the Denver courthouse were Judge Veronica S. Rossman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit; U.S. District Court Judges William J. Martínez, Daniel D. Domenico, Regina M. Rodriguez, Charlotte N. Sweeney, Nina Y. Wang and Crews; U.S. Magistrate Judges Scott T. Varholak, Kathryn A. Starnella and Cyrus Y. Chung; and Acting U.S. Attorney J. Bishop Grewell.

Afterward, there was a reception at the 10th Circuit’s courthouse, which O’Hara paid for himself.