Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel
An Independent Office of the Colorado Supreme Court
Promoting Professionalism. Protecting the Public.
As we’ve previously noted, on January 2, 2024, a break-in at the Ralph Carr Judicial Center resulted in significant damage to the building, including to the 5th floor where our offices are located. Fortunately, many of the services we provide are available electronically. While we continue to receive mail at the building, when possible, please use email and phone services to communicate with our office. We appreciate your continued patience.
The Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel is pleased to announce the launch of our redesigned website, available at coloradolegalregulation.com. This new site is searchable and ADA-accessible. We’re excited to make accessing our website and online services easier and more streamlined. While our old website address coloradosupremecourt.com will still exist and redirect users to the new site, be sure to update your bookmarks with our new website.
State law, namely HB21-1110 and HB24-1454, required all state agencies to meet certain accessibility standards on their websites. OARC is funded exclusively through fees it collects – principally attorney and LLP registration fees, but also admissions application fees, CLE fees and other fees. It receives no legislative general fund appropriation. For more information on the legislative requirements, click here.
On October 2, 2024, the Colorado Supreme Court adopted amendments to Colorado Rules of Professional Conduct 1.15A and 1.15B, specifically the comments following Rule 1.15A and the text of Rule 1.15B. The amendments address the circumstances where a lawyer is holding funds in trust and wishes to remit the funds to the owner, but the owner refuses to accept the funds or will not communicate with the lawyer about the funds after the lawyer has made reasonable efforts to contact the owner. The amendments explain the lawyer may hold the funds in a COLTAF account or remit the funds to COLTAF (under already-existing provisions in the rules), regardless of the amount or length of time for which they are held. The amendments further explain the lawyer’s duty to provide notice to the client, to keep a record of the remittance if funds are remitted to COLTAF, and the lawyer’s obligations if the owner later informs the lawyer they will accept the funds. These provisions are unique to COLTAF accounts, as opposed to other trust accounts, because the state’s unclaimed property act may apply to those other types of accounts. The adopted amendments can be found here.
The Colorado Supreme Court is considering adding to the rules that govern admission in Colorado to specifically address disability accommodations for applicants for the bar exam and the licensed legal paraprofessional exam. The new rule explains how an applicant qualifies for disability accommodations and the process for considering that request, which would supplement the policies for accommodations that can be found on the Admissions website. The Court has scheduled a public hearing on the proposed rule on December 11, 2024 at 3:30 p.m. at the Colorado Supreme Court. The deadline for submitting public comments was November 15, 2024 at 4 p.m. The deadline to request to speak at the public hearing is December 2, 2024 at 4 p.m. Comments and speaking requests may be emailed to supremecourtrules@judicial.state.co.us. The proposed rule and information regarding the hearing can be found here. The policies and guidelines can be found here.
The second exam administration for the Licensed Legal Paraprofessional (LLP program) was held on November 12. Thirty-five applicants took the exam. There will be another LLP exam administration April 29, 2025, and applications are currently being accepted. The Community College of Denver will offer another ethics class in February and March 2025. The link is here and the registration deadline is January 27, 2025.
Sarah Myers, the Executive Director for the Colorado Lawyer Assistance Program, is leaving to return to her home base–the East Coast. Sarah has worked with COLAP since 2012 and became the Executive Director in 2018. In her last article as Executive Director, Sarah leaves us with wisdom and guidance for managing stress. The legal community has benefitted tremendously from Sarah’s knowledge, experience, leadership and dedication. We wish Sarah the very best.
We also congratulate Elizabeth Lembo, currently COLAP’s clinical coordinator, on her appointment as the new Executive Director of COLAP.
Ryann Peyton, the Executive Director of the Colorado Attorney Mentoring Program and Legal Entrepreneurs for Justice, continues the trend of keeping CAMP and its many offerings innovative, timely and relevant. Here, Ryann explains what’s ahead for CAMP in 2025.
Important CLE compliance reminder
If your three-year compliance period ends in 2024, now is the time to make a plan for compliance by December 31, and to enter your credits by January 31, 2025, in order to avoid significant late fees.
Here are the key links:
To check your transcript and enter credits, click here.
Attorneys must have 45 credit hours, which includes a minimum of 2 hours of Equity, Diversity and Inclusivity (“EDI”) credits and a minimum of 5 hours of ethics or legal professionalism credits. To review the rules, regulations and forms, click here.
To find EDI-accredited courses, click here and under either the Live or Home Study Courses tab (depending on which you want to take), click on the EDI column heading until courses are sorted by the number of EDI credits given. If you know part of the course title or provider name, you also can enter those search terms in the search fields provided. You also can click on “Export” to get a searchable spreadsheet of all courses.
Note that a course covering both the Rules of Professional Conduct and diversity in the profession might not give attendees both ethics and EDI credit. That is because each hour of a course may receive either ethics or EDI accreditation, but not both for the same hour. To ensure the course you are taking satisfies the credits you are seeking (regardless of how it is advertised), check our website to confirm the accreditation.
The Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel has a free lawyer self-assessment online CLE program that qualifies for 3 ethics credits if fully completed. Click here for more information.
Registration Reminder
As we near the end of the year, our office is preparing to send out registration statements. Be sure our office has your current contact information. To update your information, you may notify the office in writing by sending a letter, or by using the change of address form. You may also contact us by email to report any changes.
The online registration system will be available at coloradolegalregulation.com starting on December 2, 2024. Postcard reminders will be mailed this week. One new addition to the registration process this year is multifactor authentication (MFA) at the time of login. While MFA is new to the registration process, you have likely used it before when logging into other secure accounts. We’re pleased to add this layered security to the registration process.
Dec. 1 Late filing deadline for February 2025 bar exam
Dec. 6 OARC’s Trust Account School, webinar (Margaret Funk and J.P. Moore)
Dec. 10 New Judge Orientation – Working with Attorneys, SCAO, live in Denver (Jessica Yates)
Dec. 10 What’s New in Attorney Regulation, Colorado Environmental Management Society, live (Erin Robson Kristofco)
Dec. 16 Practicing with Professionalism, CBA-CLE webinar
Jan. 13 Practicing with Professionalism, CBA-CLE webinar
Jan. 30 Common Ethical Dilemmas in Family Law Practice, Family Law Section, Young Lawyer Breakfast, remote (Erin Robson Kristofco)
