Information About Filing a Lawyer-LLP-Magistrate Complaint

☐ What is the Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel?

The Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel (OARC) is an independent office of the Colorado Supreme Court. Our office investigates and prosecutes allegations of violations of the Rules of Professional Conduct by lawyers, licensed legal paraprofessionals (LLPs), and magistrates (a specific type of judicial officer) in Colorado. The Office of the Presiding Disciplinary Judge presides over formal complaints against lawyers, LLPs, and magistrates.

☐ What if I have concerns about a judge?

With the exception of state court magistrates, our office does not generally have authority to investigate the conduct of judicial officers for acts taken in the course of their judicial duties. Complaints about state court judges may be filed with the Colorado Commission on Judicial Discipline. For complaints regarding administrative law judges, please confirm with the related state agency where to file your complaint. For complaints regarding municipal court judges, please contact the employer of the judge in the municipality at issue, such as the city manager’s office, the city council or the presiding judge of that court.

☐ What does it mean to file a complaint?

When you file a complaint (also referred to as a request for investigation or grievance), you are accusing a lawyer, LLP, or magistrate of unethical conduct.

☐ Who can file a complaint with our office?

Anyone—members of the public, judges, lawyers—can file a complaint against a lawyer, LLP, or magistrate. If, however, you are not the client or former client of the person you are complaining about, there may be practical limitations for our office to investigate the matter due to confidentiality and attorney-client privilege.

☐ How do I file a complaint?

You may contact our office by phone at (303) 457-5801, submit your complaint in writing and send it to our office by mail (OARC, Intake Division, 1300 Broadway, Suite 500, Denver, CO 80203), or you may use our online complaint form (link below). We do not accept anonymous complaints, so please be prepared to provide your name and contact information. We also cannot accept complaints against an entire law firm or organization. You will need to identify the specific individual(s) you are complaining about.

☐ What information should I provide?

Describe the conduct of the lawyer/LLP/magistrate by including details, in chronological order, and supplying dates where possible. Simply alleging conclusions without setting out facts to support these conclusions makes it more difficult to analyze your complaint.  We prefer you not use generative artificial intelligence to draft your complaint as we have found those complaints to be conclusory and lacking the factual details we will need to analyze your matter. 

☐ Will the lawyer/LLP/magistrate know I filed a complaint?

You should assume the lawyer/LLP/magistrate will know you filed a complaint. If we determine to investigate your complaint further and contact the lawyer/LLP/magistrate, we will provide your complaint as you supplied it to our office.

Even if our office determines not to proceed with an investigation, a lawyer or LLP may contact our office and request information and records for any complaints filed against the lawyer (including lawyers serving as magistrates) or LLP. To the extent our office has responsive information or records, we will provide the information and records to the lawyer or LLP.

☐ Is my complaint confidential?

At the intake division, when you first complain, the matter is treated as confidential by our office. You and the lawyer/LLP/magistrate are not bound by our office’s confidentiality. Depending on the course of the investigation, your complaint may become part of a public record. Accordingly, please do not provide confidential information such as social security numbers, birthdates, bank account numbers, credit card numbers, medical records, and documents from protected court files as part of your complaint unless our office specifically requests that you provide this information.  Please do not submit original documents, as paper documents we receive are scanned and shredded and will not be returned.  If your matter becomes part of a public proceeding, our office complies with applicable state law and rules to redact certain types of confidential information.

☐ What contact information do you need?

Please provide your name, phone number, current mailing address, and email address. Please inform us of any changes to that contact information. If you are unable to be contacted directly and you have someone you authorize to communicate with our office on your behalf, please provide that person’s contact information.

☐ Is there a time limitation on filing a complaint?

OARC cannot consider conduct that occurred more than five years ago, except in limited circumstances.

☐ Can you help me file a complaint?

We cannot represent you or give you legal advice.  We cannot help you decide whether you should file a complaint or what you should say. You should explain your complaint in your own words without referring to ethics rules.

If you have a disability and need assistance with filing a complaint, please let our office know so that we may connect you with our ADA Coordinator.

☐ What if I want to withdraw my complaint?

Once you submit your complaint, you cannot withdraw it. OARC has a duty to the public to complete its investigation. However, you may reach out to us to explain why you wish to withdraw your complaint and that information will be considered when analyzing the matter.

☐ What can OARC do?

Our office will review the allegations in the complaint and determine whether the Rules of Professional Conduct are implicated and, if so, whether we believe that now or with further investigation we can meet our burden of proof of clear and convincing evidence to establish a violation of the Rules. As we review the matter, if we need more information from you, we will contact you. We may also contact the lawyer/LLP/magistrate to get information. If we determine the matter needs further investigation, such as speaking to witnesses, reviewing voluminous documents, or subpoenaing documents, we may move the case to our trial division for further investigation, where the matter may progress to a formal proceeding. Our office will notify you should the matter move to the trial division.

☐ What not to expect from our process

Our office investigates allegations of unethical conduct as set forth by the Rules of Professional Conduct. Our office may not give you legal advice, represent you, replace your counsel, intervene in your case, or change any court ruling.

We cannot help you recover fees or seek to overturn an unfavorable ruling. Our office cannot direct your lawyer or LLP to take or refrain from taking a particular action in your matter. Our office will not review your disagreement with your lawyer or LLP regarding strategy and tactics. Our office cannot evaluate your case for a malpractice action, nor can we represent you in a malpractice action. If you believe the lawyer or LLP has civil liability for their actions in your matter, it is your responsibility to seek and obtain legal advice.

Our office does not have jurisdiction to address fee disputes. Disputes over the amount or the payment of fees may be submitted to the Colorado Bar Association’s Legal Fee Arbitration Committee  or another appropriate forum for resolution.

Our office also will not review personal matters, such as disputes with lawyers or LLPs who happen to be your family members or neighbors.

For magistrate complaints, our office does not have authority to review the legality or correctness of a magistrate’s decision, nor can we direct the magistrate to take particular actions in your case.  

☐ Time Frame for Review

After you file your complaint, in most cases, an investigator will contact you by phone within a few days to discuss your complaint, though due to staffing, it could take longer. If the office needs more information, an intake lawyer or other intake personnel will gather more information.  If you already have filed a complaint but have not heard from our office, please do not file a duplicate complaint.  Instead, please review your voicemail and email  messages.  One of the main reasons our office closes a complaint is when we have reached out to the complainant for more information, but we never received a response.  If you receive such a message, please follow instructions for responding.

If your allegations of misconduct involve conduct that is presently pending before a court, we may elect to wait to conduct our investigation until the court case is resolved. To proceed, please fill out the online complaint form.