Staff Attorney Job Description
A staff attorney in the Office of Legislative Legal Services (Office) contributes to the Office’s legislative drafting and legal services functions by:
- Drafting legislation and amendments to legislation for legislators;
- Attending legislative committee of reference meetings and answering technical and legal questions concerning legislation pending before the committees;
- Performing legal research;
- Independently drafting or working with other Office staff or other legislative staff to draft written work product, including legal and research memorandums;
- Reviewing executive branch agency rules to determine whether they are within the promulgating agency’s rule-making authority, drafting rule review memorandums that explain why unauthorized rules should not be extended, and possibly presenting rule review issues to the Committee on Legal Services;
- Annotating Colorado Supreme Court and Court of Appeals cases that apply or interpret the Colorado constitution, Colorado Revised Statutes, or Colorado Court Rules;
- Reviewing initiatives, developing appropriate questions for initiative review and comment memorandums, conducting meetings with initiative proponents, and drafting ballot titles for consideration by the Title Board;
- Attending legislative interim committee meetings, drafting legislation requested by committees, and presenting the draft legislation to the committees; and
- Completing special projects and other assigned tasks.
A staff attorney may also be asked to:
- Assist with litigation involving the General Assembly;
- Develop or conduct in-house professional development or training presentations for legislators and legislative staff;
- Work one-on-one with one or more newly elected legislators to help them develop and enhance their knowledge of the legislative process; or
- Assist in preparing the Colorado Revised Statutes and related materials for publication by reviewing titles, indexing newly enacted legislation, and drafting summaries of enacted legislation for inclusion in the digest of bills.