The Denver-based federal appeals court concluded last month that a former attorney cannot mask her identity while suing the Colorado Judicial Department for alleged improprieties in her disability and disbarment proceedings.

“Jane Roe,” representing herself, sued the Judicial Department and attorney regulators in 2024. She accused the defendants of discrimination, defamation, and violations of her constitutional rights in the proceedings that culminated in her disbarment.

Because Roe did not have an attorney, Colorado’s federal trial court routed her complaint through its screening process for self-represented litigants. U.S. Magistrate Judge Richard T. Gurley advised Roe that there need to be “exceptional” circumstances for plaintiffs to avoid using their real name in court.

“If Plaintiff wishes to proceed using a pseudonym, she must seek permission of the Court and demonstrate that she has an important privacy interest that should allow her to use this unusual procedure,” he wrote.

“Plaintiff is justifiably concerned about acts of reprisal that could further damage her personal and professional reputation and future endeavors and inflict additional and severe financial and/or mental harm,” Roe responded. “Plaintiff should also be permitted to proceed in this action anonymously because the public does not have a strong interest in knowing her identity.”

The Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition and Eugene Volokh, a First Amendment scholar and a Hoover Institution fellow at Stanford, objected to Roe’s request for anonymity.

“Plaintiff is claiming that she was mistreated in the attorney disciplinary process — but to evaluate that process one has to know her name, so as to find the decision explaining her disbarment and other decisions that provide a perspective on her alleged misbehavior,” they wrote. “If a decision against Defendants is rendered ‘behind closed doors,’ with details about the plaintiff ‘sealed from public view,’ that would understandably increase public skepticism about the fairness of the process.”

In April 2025, Chief U.S. Magistrate Judge Scott T. Varholak, who inherited the case from Gurley, decided Roe had not made a strong enough argument for remaining anonymous.

“Plaintiff’s allegations are entirely too vague and too conclusory to overcome the presumptive right of public access to court filings and proceedings and to warrant restriction,” he wrote, ordering Roe to file a complaint under her real name.

Roe objected, but U.S. District Court Senior Judge Lewis T. Babcock upheld Varholak’s directive and gave Roe 30 days to amend her complaint or face dismissal.

Roe appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, where she argued that revealing her name “is likely to create a side show that diverts attention away from the very real constitutional issues.”

On June 16, a three-judge 10th Circuit panel agreed with Varholak that Roe’s case did not involve the typical circumstances where federal courts permit anonymity.

“First, we are not persuaded this case involves ‘matters of a highly sensitive and personal nature’ to any degree that outweighs the presumption of openness,” wrote Judge Richard E.N. Federico. “Appellant acknowledges her identity was made public in the underlying disbarment proceeding but argues disclosing it in this case ‘would expand stigma.’ However, her own ’embarrassment’ regarding the disability and disbarment proceedings ‘is not enough’ to support her use of a pseudonym.”

He added that Roe had not explained how she would suffer future harm from revealing her name. Further, the panel was not persuaded by Roe’s argument that shielding her name would keep the case focused on the merits of her allegations.

Those contentions, “which might be raised in almost any lawsuit,” Federico added, “fail to show her case is ‘exceptional’.”

To date, Roe has not filed an amended complaint under her real name.

In her complaint, Roe referenced a disbarment decision from a disciplinary panel dated March 3, 2023, and a February 20, 2024, Colorado Supreme Court decision blocking her from representing herself in state courts. The only person whose disciplinary proceedings coincided with those dates is Nina H. Kazazian.

Further, “Jane Roe’s” address on her legal filings was identical to the address listed by Kazazian in a 2024 lawsuit filed in federal court in Illinois under her real name.

“In the past eleven years, respondent, Nina H. Kazazian, has initiated no fewer than ten lawsuits and twice as many appeals — most of which courts have found to be duplicative, meritless, or otherwise frivolous,” the Supreme Court wrote in its 2024 decision. “Now, no longer constrained by the ethical obligations of attorneys, Kazazian persists as a pro se (self-represented) party, creating new proceedings or prolonging old ones to continue her fruitless attempts at relitigating long-decided issues.”

Colorado Politics was unable to reach Kazazian by phone or email, despite sending messages to multiple addresses, regarding the Colorado case.

The case is Roe v. Colorado Judicial Department et al.