CHARLES E. NORTON, Shareholder
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Having conducted over 100 trials and countless hearings, Charles is a veteran trial lawyer with over 30 years experience. During the course of his career, Charles has focused on complex civil litigation, including disputes involving annexations, disconnections, eminent domain, utilities relocation, TABOR, public finance, real estate, land use, and municipal law. Charles has litigated issues on behalf of, and against, various governmental entities, including municipalities and special districts. In addition to practicing law, Charles has taught a constitutional law course at the College of Arts and Sciences for the University of Colorado Denver for 25 years. This has allowed Charles to pursue his love of teaching and keep current on cutting edge legal issues.
ERIN M. SMITH, Shareholder
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Erin has been representing private clients and local governments for more than 20 years. She has served as general counsel to special districts and cities throughout Colorado. Erin is also routinely retained by counties, cities, and special districts to act as special counsel in a variety of matters, such as land use issues and internal investigations. Over the course of her career, Erin has counseled clients on a wide variety of municipal matters with an emphasis on public infrastructure project procurement, construction and finance. She has experience in all aspects of land development, including land acquisition and eminent domain; municipal finance; public private partnership agreements, including urban redevelopment projects and the Northwest Parkway Public Highway Authority concession and lease agreement; design/build contracts; and traditional design/bid/build contracts. Her experience also includes advising on all aspects of contract administration and claims and handling all aspects of procuring and administering contracts for operations and maintenance services for municipal clients. Her practice also emphasizes land use and administrative law. She has drafted numerous land use regulations, including zoning and subdivision regulations and advises public and private clients on land entitlement matters. In addition, she regularly advises municipal and quasi-municipal clients on election, employment, TABOR, governmental liability, procurement policies, code enforcement, liquor code enforcement, open records law, open meetings law, local legislative, utility and other municipal matters.
HERBERT C. (LEE) PHILLIPS, Of Counsel
Lee Phillips has been practicing local government law in Colorado for 40 years, representing cities, towns, counties and special districts. In 1985, together with John Hayes, Lee founded the first Colorado law firm specializing in municipal law, Hayes & Phillips which continued in various iterations, through 2015 when Lee founded The Phillips Law Offices, LLC, in Fairplay. Over the years Lee has served as general counsel to numerous Colorado local governments including the cities or towns of Buena Vista, Greenwood Village, Northglenn, Sheridan and Winter Park. He has also been brought in as special counsel on complicated matters by cities and towns such as Arvada, Aurora, Commerce City, Federal Heights, and Salida. Lee currently serves as the City Attorney for Cripple Creek, the Town Attorney for Alma and Fairplay, the Park County Attorney and general counsel for the South Park Health Service District.