Board Member Profile

David Colligan – Buffalo, NY

Mr. Colligan is a partner in the law firm of Watson, Bennett, Colligan, Johnson & Schechter, L.L.P., located in Buffalo, New York.  He focuses his practice in business law, real estate, and estate planning.  A member of the Bar since 1978, he was graduated magna cum laude from the state University of New York at Geneseo (B.A., 1974) and the University of Buffalo School of Law (J.D., 1977). 

Mr. Colligan is a member of the Corporate Law Committee of the New York State Bar Association and was admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court.  Mr. Colligan is a former director of the New York Forest Owners Association, is the current chairman of Reforest Buffalo, a director of The Buffalo Green Fund and The Buffalo Olmsted Parks Conservancy, and is Administrative Subcommittee chairman of the Western New York Re-licensing Consensus Committee.

 Mr. Colligan has a wide range of experience representing owners of forested property including gas and oil leases, timber contracts and other forestland legal issues.  He has spoken at numerous rural landowner seminars put on by Cornell Cooperative Extension, developed a web site on forestry legal issues, and has written articles for magazines such as the Forest Owner published by New York Forest Owner’s Association and also for the national Tree Farmer Magazine.  Recently a law review article prepared by David J. Colligan appeared in the University of Denver Law Review entitled: Forestland Taxation in the New Millennium: Stewardship Incentivized”.

In addition to representing landowners of forested property, David J. Colligan also owns forested property.