Colorado Legal Services announced Feb. 25 that it was celebrating 100 years of service. The organization serves around 10,000 Coloradans every year with civil legal challenges, and its work is focused on a wide range of issues and clients, including tenants, victims of domestic violence, those being targeted for unfair debt collection, public benefits, tax disputes, farmworkers rights, survivors of human trafficking and severe crime and complicated ID issues, according to a press release from CLS.
“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,” Matt Baca, executive director of Colorado Legal Services, said in a press release. “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.”
CLS launched in February 1925 as the Legal Aid Society of Denver, and it would later be renamed to the Legal Aid Society of Metropolitan Denver. The press release noted that until 1953, when the Legal Aid Society of Colorado Springs was founded, Denver was the only city in the state with a formal legal services program for low-income Coloradans.
In the following decades, more legal aid societies formed across the state. In 1999, several of them joined together, including the Legal Aid Society of Metropolitan Denver, to form a statewide organization, CLS.
Jon Asher was the executive director of the Legal Aid Society of Metropolitan Denver before the merger and CLS’s executive director following the merger, holding the title for more than four decades. He retired in 2023.
“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 in a press release. “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.”
In recent years, CLS has rebranded and built a new legal aid website, added social workers to its team and worked to increase funding options for low-income Coloradans.