Feb. 25, 2025 (DENVER) – Colorado Legal Services today celebrates 100 years of fighting for justice for Coloradans with low incomes. The statewide legal aid organization serves around 10,000 Coloradans each year who are facing civil legal challenges, helping people in our communities stay housed, escape domestic violence, stop unfair debt collection, undo bureaucratic public benefits mistakes, solve tax disputes, protect the rights of farmworkers, advocate for survivors of human trafficking and severe crime, and fix complicated identification document issues.
Artwork from Charlo, a Colorado artist whose work can be found at charlo.studio, highlighting Colorado Legal Services’ work and community impact. Words and images in the artwork reflect the organization and its staff’s commitment to Colorado communities. The artwork was made possible by Charlo and a grant from the Kettering Foundation.
“For 100 years, we have remained true to our core values of defending the rights of low-income people and seniors. I am eternally grateful for the continued dedication of Colorado Legal Services attorneys, paralegals, intake staff, social workers, and many others who do this important work,” said Matt Baca, executive director of Colorado Legal Services. “As we look forward to the next 100 years, it is with the dogged determination, compassionate dedication, and resilience that carried us through the first century of service. While our clients face continued hardships and threats to legal aid funding are ever present, the future of legal aid is one we will meet with the conviction that civil legal representation is a vital human right.”
Colorado Legal Services began in February of 1925 when the Legal Aid Society of Denver (later called the Legal Aid Society of Metropolitan Denver) was formed. Until the Legal Aid Society of Colorado Springs was founded in 1953, Denver was the only city in the state with a formal legal services program for low-income Coloradans, leaving people in other areas in civil court without representation if they could not afford it.
More legal aid organizations continued to start across the state, until several separate legal aid organizations, including the original Legal Aid Society of Metropolitan Denver, consolidated in 1999 to become the cohesive, statewide legal aid program Colorado Legal Services is today.
The organization’s longtime director, Jon Asher, retired in 2023 after 42 years as Executive Director. He was the director during the consolidation in 1999, and prior to assuming that role, he was the Executive Director of the Legal Aid Society of Metropolitan Denver. He spent his entire legal career – more than 50 years – working on behalf of people in Colorado who have low incomes.
“Throughout my career in legal aid I’ve experienced the serious challenges, from variations in funding to shifting legal landscapes and the significantly increasing number of people who need our help,” Asher said. “Thousands of Coloradans over the last 100 years have had their legal rights asserted, defended, and, where possible, expounded, and their lives have been improved by Colorado Legal Services’ most able and important work.”
Colorado Legal Services rings in the next century with support and collaboration from Coloradans and organizations statewide. In recent years, the organization continued to build community relationships, rebranded and built a new website to help people more easily access it and various resources, added social workers to its team to help provide holistic services, and worked to increase funding options for low-income Coloradans.
For more information, to see a firsthand client account, and to learn more about the history of Colorado Legal Services, go to coloradolegalservices.org/about/100-years.
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About us
Colorado Legal Services is Colorado’s statewide nonprofit legal aid program providing civil legal assistance—which does not include criminal or traffic matters—to low-income individuals and older Coloradans throughout the state. Its 13 offices provide free legal assistance in a broad variety of legal areas, including eviction defense, consumer protection, services to survivors of serious crime and human trafficking, representation for domestic violence survivors, and many others.
About 1 in 8 Coloradans qualify financially for CLS’s services. CLS’s current staff of 89 attorneys and 56 paralegals is supplemented by a robust private attorney involvement program. Learn more at www.coloradolegalservices.org.
You can support Colorado Legal Services by donating to the Legal Aid Foundation of Colorado at www.legalaidfoundation.org/donate or 1120 Lincoln Street, Suite 701 Denver, Colorado 80203.