Golden, home of the world famous Red Rocks Amphitheatre, the Coors Brewery and some of the best hiking in the Denver metropolitan area, became home to something else a year ago — an in-house legal team.
The city asked Sandra Llanes, a long-time city attorney for Boulder, to take the reins and build the office. Llanes began her legal career at the University of Colorado Law School, earning her J.D. there before spending a few years in Arizona.
At the University of Colorado Law School, Llanes was a first-generation student for the second time. Her parents immigrated to the U.S. from Uruguay when she was three years old.
“My story in that way is kind of unique, none of my family ever graduated from college and so that was kind of a big thing,” Llanes said. “And then when I decided to go to law school, they’re like, ‘Wait, what? More school?’”
But it didn’t take long for her to return to Colorado. After a judicial clerkship and some time as a prosecutor with the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, Llanes accepted a position as a municipal prosecutor for the city of Boulder.
The 20 years she spent at Boulder were capped by several years as the deputy city attorney, and a stint in 2021 as the interim city attorney.
For all the time that she was working for the city of Boulder, Llanes didn’t live there. She told Law Week that she’s been in Golden for the last two decades and raised her family there. Her dream job was always to do the type of work she was doing in Boulder but in the community that she lived in. For a long time, that job didn’t exist.
Llanes didn’t expect the job to become available, but when it did, she applied. On Oct. 23, 2023, Llanes was appointed to the role. “It’s coming up on a year, and it’s just really exciting to be here,” Llanes said.
Part of her remit as the city’s new attorney was to build a legal department from scratch.
“If you can imagine all the nuts and bolts that’s required for any sort of law firm, you have to think about all the different things that you need to do to set up that structure,” Llanes said. “And then, of course, still do the legal work.”
The team Llanes has built includes a paralegal, an attorney and a law clerk. “I’ve been really fortunate to be able to hire a great team,” Llanes said.
Since the inception of the team a year ago, Llanes and her team have had to deal with a variety of legal issues. Some of those issues are familiar across the Golden border into the Denver metro area, but others are more unique to the city.
“I think one of the things that, with many [other] small towns, Golden is struggling with, is trying to preserve that small town feel, but at the same time dealing with some of those big city issues that just sort of creep in,” Llanes said.
Llanes said that those issues include the tourism influx in the summer, the special events the city hosts, parking and the issues surrounding the unhoused population and providing resources and services to them. One of the big projects her team is involved in is the Clayworks project, which is a planned multi-use and residential development in the city.
“It’s going to have a big impact once the development is done,” Llanes said. “They’ve demolished some of the existing buildings, so that’s going to be a big change.”
One aspect of the past year that Llanes highlighted as particularly important was the standardization of contracts and templates across the city’s agencies. “Which isn’t as exciting, but it is super important.”
Overall, Llanes said her job is to assist the city’s staff and its council in their policies and strategies and to provide legal support. She told Law Week that she feels lucky to do what she does on a daily basis.
“Every day is completely different and I think that’s what’s so exciting about municipal law,” Llanes said. “It’s almost like you’re a general practitioner doctor who can have a patient that has one need, then you have someone else in a completely different area, and that’s kind of what municipal law is about.”
Nearly a year in, she said that it still feels like her dream job.
“I feel like I’m living the American dream, because that’s just what this country provides, so many opportunities, and I think people just have to take advantage of them the best [they] can,” Llanes. “But it’s an interesting thing, that I never would have pictured myself in this position, and yet here I am, so very grateful.”