Legal Practice in Southwest Colorado

All of the following categories of court listed below demonstrate the varieties of court
offered in LaPlata County, all of which I experienced during my three week
internship at the law firm Eggleston and Kosnik. All listed court cases are among
those I researched and /or observed during my internship aside from my additional
work on litigation, business, and real estate matters, and include small claims
court, which handles matters through mediation, county court, which serves as the
court for smaller civil and criminal violations, state district court, which deals with
larger civil and criminal violations, administrative matters, which is not function a
court but rather a public debate and information session in which the issue is
evaluated by the county board of commissioners, as well as various transactional
matters which deal with conflicts in real estate and business contracts.

Small Claims Court

Small Claims Court is a part of county court, and handles plaintiffs and defendants
charges and defenses respectively, in cases whose stakes are low (the jurisdictional limit being
$7500). The aim of small claims court is to reach either a mediated settlement between the
conflicting parties, or to have a quick, informal hearing. Lawyers are not present as paid
attorneys, but it is possible, as a lawyer, to volunteer for unpaid mediation between the conflicting
parties. Small claims is a low level of county court, and is presided over by magistrate judges.

I attended a small claims mediation at the LaPlata County Courthouse in which the
plaintiff, a small business owner hired by a larger construction company to clear snow from a
worksite, accused this company, the defendant, of paying him an inadequate sum of money for his
labor. The defendant presented documents which the plaintiff had signed when taking on the job
guaranteeing that he would receive the money that he did and nothing more, although the plaintiff
denied signing these and charged the construction company with defrauding their partners in
business, demonstrating a desire to press further charges against said company. The case was
mediated by a volunteer attorney, Paul Kosnik, and after the plaintiff and defendant discussed the

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 validity of the documents presented, an agreement was reached in which the plaintiff settled for a
percentage of the initial requested additional sum in return for agreeing to cease and desist all
legal motions against the company.

County Court

These courts handle civil (non-criminal) charges, and process relatively small disputes
including corporate reclamations of money, individual monetary compensation due to injury,
criminal cases which are typically misdemeanors, and landowners looking to acquire orders for
their property. Drug court and mental health court may also be held at county court, and in cases
negotiating payments, the jurisdictional limit for county court amounts to $15,000. The aim of
these courts is generally to settle disputes through a quicker a quicker and less expensive process.
Attorneys are allowed to be present as paid representatives for conflicting parties in county court,
and county judges oversee a county court case.

I sat in on a client meeting in which a county court case could be filed. It involved a
construction project, in which the plaintiff pointed out an error in the auditing process which the
city used to calculate the use tax on the building materials he used as a contractor. The conflict
arose out of the contractor being required to pay more for the construction materials used in a
now completed building complex, as opposed to his paid amount which he believes to already
have been submitted to the city. The auditor is therefore accused of both a miscalculation of taxes
and an overstepping of his bounds as a city auditor. The outcome of the case is still pending.

State District Court

District courts are the highest state trial court for filing criminal and civil cases which
violate state law, and the delineation between federal and state law violation determines whether a
defendant will be tried at a federal or state district court. Attorneys may be present as paid
representatives at district court trials, and additional charges which may be tried at district court
can include cases involving a diversity of citizenship. District judges sit at state district court
cases and may be accompanied by magistrates.

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 I experienced this court system during my internship via researching a state district case
in which a stepfather and stepson disputed the legality of their implied partnership in a ranch.
The stepfather had formed which benefitted his stepchildren, including the stepson, and
demonstrated no desire to exclude his stepchildren from said trust. However, with regard to the
ranch, the stepfather did demonstrate a desire to reclaim his property from his stepson who had
been living there for several decades and had made aesthetic improvements to said ranch,
specifically in the form of a lake which he constructed on the property. The stepson was not
willing to cede any portion of the property under the argument that in making improvements to
add to the property value of the ranch he had achieved the position of partner along with his
stepfather, and also referenced a document from a bank statement from the 1990s which included
both the stepson and stepfather as partners on the ranch. The outcome of the case is still pending.

Two other issues which I researched and observed included a revision of the CCIOA
(Colorado Common Interest Ownership Act) statute and an overview of a case regarding a
mortgage dispute with Wells Fargo bank. The latter case involved a property having two
mortgages, in which the initial owners did pay off the entire first mortgage on their property
before selling it to new owners. However there was another home equity line of credit (HELOC)
from the initial owners which had a zero balance owing on this second mortgage. The bank did
not release the HELOC, and the initial owners, after selling the property, borrowed more money
on the line of credit which was secured by house no longer in their possession. The current
owners are now selling the property again, and the title company has hired Eggleston and Kosnik
to clear that title and get the HELOC released. This case is still pending.

Administrative Hearings

These are matters which can be addressed in a public forum in front of a panel of county,
town, or state authorities and do not constitute a trial. These can include matters at the level of
county, town, and school district.

The issues which I observed in this category included a county hearing regarding the
installation of a cell tower and a contract detailing the inspection of a rural property in Pagosa
Springs.

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 The county hearing took the form of a public forum in which the construction of a cell
tower was discussed by the county board of commissioners, the representatives from the company
planning the construction of the tower, the attorneys of the applicant wishing to build the tower,
and the public. The meeting lasted over its designated end time, and I only witnessed a portion of
it, however in this time segment the board of commissioners debated the implications of the
height of the tower, the towers benefits to the data services available in the area, and the different
types of visual effect that the proposed tower might have to remain partially camouflaged in the
landscape, all of this following the company representatives pitch for the tower as well as the
delineation of the towers purpose and effects by the companys attorneys. In the end, the tower
was approved by the county commissioners and the applicant may proceed to build the tower.

Transactional Matters

These are matters which can be addressed through documentations of issues as well as
attorney guidance and do not constitute a trial.

The real estate contract I worked on described the purchase of a rural property less than
35 acres in size in the area, and included the inspection of this property and the rectification of a
rule outlawing the subdivision of the property after 1972. This was especially important to this
property as city water was not accessible, leaving water rights to be negotiated. The rural
location of the property made the deal more complicated as rural properties may not be legal lots
or have access to water and sewage disposal as do properties within the city. On this particular
property, two tracts of land were owned by the same individual, including the easement shared
between the two properties, and while structures on both tracts made the property more feasible,
securing the water rights and quality of the water and property in general required a property
inspection, which the owners of the property have a right to, and which was facilitated by
attorneys in order to prevent future complications in this area.

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