Paying $800 an hour for four lawyers sends Denver legal bills soaring

Denver is facing a $200 million budget deficit in 2026 and has laid off 169 city workers, cut city services and left hundreds of city jobs unfilled because of the budget squeeze. At the same time, a CBS Colorado investigation has found the Denver City Attorney's Office has been paying four lawyers at an outside law firm as much as $800 an hour to defend the city in two employee lawsuits — including one lawyer who graduated from law school just two years ago. Denver is also paying paralegals at the law firm $375 an hour.

"That's outrageous," said Pete Schulte, who serves as city attorney in Aurora.

"I could never approve $800 an hour for outside counsel. It's just unconscionable for tax dollars," said Schulte.

CBS Colorado found that Denver has now been billed $852,000 in just four months by the Wheeler Trigg O'Donnell law firm for the two cases, nearly twice the $470,000 cap contained in the city's contract with the firm. The contract was supposed to cover one year of legal work.

The spending is raising questions about Denver's decision to hire outside lawyers for the cases, its decision to agree to the firm's hourly rates and how quickly the legal bills have exceeded the amount the city originally agreed to pay.

But Denver City Attorney Miko Brown says the prominent Denver firm was selected after four law firms "pitched" for the work, that the selection by her internal panel was unanimous and that WTO has already achieved favorable results for Denver in previous cases.

Denver has 160 lawyers

The two lawsuits were filed by Jessica Calderon, a former Denver city employee, and Everett Martinez, a current Denver city employee, who separately allege wrongful treatment and retaliation by the city. Up until recently, Calderon worked in the Mayor's Office of Social Equity & Innovation while Martinez works at Denver International Airport.

Denver has a large in-house legal operation. The City Attorney's Office has about 160 lawyers, including an Employment Law section with 17 total employees, according to the city. That includes 10 attorneys, along with paralegals and support staff.

Records show Denver's own city attorneys handled the Calderon case from its filing in August 2024 until April 2026, when the City Attorney opted to hire Wheeler Trigg O'Donnell. The Martinez case was filed in March of this year, and WTO lawyers were immediately put on that case.

Monthly billing records obtained by CBS Colorado show the city has been billed $800 an hour for four lawyers at the firm and $375 an hour for paralegals. Paralegals are not licensed to practice law but assist with research, drafting documents and interacting with clients.

The rates Denver has been paying the private law firm are substantially higher than averages reported by Clio, a legal technology company that tracks billing data from tens of thousands of legal professionals.

Clio's latest data, based on 2025 billing, shows that the average Colorado lawyer billed $321 an hour. The database shows the highest hourly rates in Colorado at $492 per hour.

"Unconscionable for tax dollars"

Schulte, the Aurora City Attorney, had criticism beyond the hourly rates being paid to WTO lawyers and paralegals.

He said he has deliberately changed the way Aurora uses outside lawyers since becoming city attorney two years ago.

Rather than routinely sending work to private law firms, Schulte said Aurora has increased the number of lawyers handling cases inside the city attorney's office. The goal is to keep more legal work in-house and use outside counsel only when there is a specific reason to do so. Schulte said that approach has saved Aurora roughly $4 million a year.

And when Aurora does hire outside counsel, Schulte said he personally scrutinizes the rates.

"I will never approve a contract for more than $500 an hour even in those specialized complex areas, anything over $400 I'm really scrutinizing ... $200 to $300 is where I'm at an hour," Schulte said.

That is substantially below the $800 hourly rate Denver agreed to pay Wheeler Trigg O'Donnell.

"Can you see any circumstance under which you'd be paying $800 an hour for lawyers?" Schulte was asked.

"Wow, you would have to really ... no I couldn't," he said.

$852,000 in four months

The hourly rate is only part of the story.

Denver's contract with Wheeler Trigg O'Donnell, which was signed by Mayor Mike Johnston in June, authorized paying the law firm up to $470,000 through March of 2027.

The contract specifically identified $470,000 as the cap.

Yet in roughly four months, the firm's bills reached $852,000.

The city's spending on the two cases has therefore already exceeded the contract cap by $382,000.

Since the original contract with WTO was under $500,000, it did not undergo scrutiny by Denver City Council. The Denver City Attorney's Office says the additional spending means it will now need to request supplemental dollars from City Council.

Melissa Sisneros, a spokesperson for the City Attorney's Office, said her office has "already begun the process of taking this contract through City Council."

The amendment had not been finalized when CBS Colorado asked the city about the spending.

A two-year lawyer billing $800 an hour

One of the lawyers billing Denver $800 an hour is Hannah Chapple, who, according to her biography and state records, got her law degree two years ago.

Billing records show Chapple billed Denver $190,640 for legal work during the four-month period reviewed by CBS Colorado.

"So it's unconscionable to pay someone with a law degree for two years $800 an hour?" Schulte was asked.

"In my opinion, yes," he said.

Clio's 2025 data puts the Colorado average for employment and labor lawyers at $387 an hour — less than half of what Denver is paying Wheeler Trigg O'Donnell lawyers.

Why did Denver hire outside counsel?

Denver's City Attorney says hiring outside counsel is standard practice for large cities. In this case, there was no formal RFP, or request for proposal, process.

Instead, the City Attorney's Office says it used an "informal qualification review" and evaluated four law firms based on qualifications, reputation, recommendations, prior experience representing the city, prior experience with the assigned judges and fee structure, according to Sisneros.

The five-person city selection panel unanimously chose WTO, according to Sisneros.

"We hired WTO because it was the best firm for the job," Sisneros said.

The city has not provided CBS Colorado with the names of the competing firms or their proposed hourly rates.

Brown's former law firm

Denver's current City Attorney has a previous connection to the law firm now receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars from the city.

Brown was a partner at Wheeler Trigg O'Donnell from 2007 until 2017, according to her LinkedIn profile.

She became Denver City Attorney in 2025.

Brown's office said she "receives no benefit" from her former law firm being hired by the city.

The city also emphasized that it had hired WTO for legal work before Brown became City Attorney.

Sisneros said Denver had successfully used WTO "for a number of years before Miko became City Attorney," dating back to 2011.

But Denver's online checkbook shows Wheeler Trigg O'Donnell has done relatively limited work for the city in recent years.

The city's online records, which go back to 2019, show about $110,000 in legal work in 2025 and about $225,000 in 2023, far less than other law firms contracting with the City of Denver.

In 2025, the Kaplan and Kirsch law firm billed the city $305,000 in legal work, and in 2023 billed Denver $575,000 in legal work.

The city nevertheless points to WTO's prior work for Denver and other government entities as one factor in its selection.

What role did Brown play?

CBS Colorado asked Brown and the City Attorney's Office whether Brown was part of the five-person panel that selected WTO and what role she played in the selection process. She did not answer those questions.

She also did not respond to a question asking if she recommended WTO or participated in negotiating the firm's rates.

When CBS Colorado sought an interview with Brown about the recent legal costs, she said, "I literally don't have any spare time to grant interviews on something of this nature."

But the city has not specifically explained why these two cases required outside lawyers at rates as high as $800 an hour.

The city says WTO has produced favorable results

Denver says the $852,000 in legal bills so far should not be viewed simply as money spent without a return.

Sisneros said the city expects to recover a "significant amount" of the legal fees.

"Thanks to WTO's outstanding representation, the City anticipates recovering a significant portion of the legal fees, on top of damages against Martinez, in that matter," Sisneros said.

"A huge red flag"

Chris Lujan, who spent 10 years in the Denver City Attorney's Office, reviewed the contract and hourly rates. Lujan now works in private law practice and occasionally goes up against his former employer in court.

He said "that rate is crazy," referring to paying $800 an hour for employment law cases, but says the City Attorney's Office not seeking a formal RFP process "deprived the marketplace of giving them a better rate."

Asked whether the arrangement passed the smell test, Lujan said the circumstances were troubling.

"Smell test, legal test, whatever test you want to call this -- I think the fact you uncovered this is deeply troubling because taxpayers are footing the bill," he said.

Lujan believes Denver could have negotiated a much better deal.

"It is a poor decision -- and poor is being polite -- to pay somebody $800 an hour to do this work. You did not have to pay someone $800 an hour to do this work," he said.

He also criticized the city's oversight of the bills.

"You did a poor job of negotiating the rate and you're not minding the store. You're just cutting a check," Lujan said.

Lujan said the $800 rate was particularly unusual for a lawyer only two years removed from law school.

"It's out of line again because $800 an hour is highly unusual to pay that for someone that's a two-year associate based on records you showed me -- highly unusual," he said.

Denver's budget problems

The legal spending comes as Denver confronts a $200 million budget deficit this year.

The city has laid off 169 workers and eliminated hundreds of vacant positions in an effort to close the gap. City services have been slashed.

Lujan said the contrast is difficult to ignore.

"You don't have enough money to pay these employees but you can pay an attorney two years out of law school $800 an hour for legal work that can be done at a fraction of that cost?" he said.

"Families are hurting, people are hurting, the underdog is getting crushed right now and when you negotiate something like this it tells me something like a) you don't care and b) you're not going to be held accountable for this decision because if you were going to be held accountable for this decision you would not have negotiated this contract," Lujan said.

"Government is supposed to be there for people, not doing it to people," he said.

Contacted by CBS Colorado, a spokesperson for Wheeler Trigg O'Donnell confirmed the firm has done work for the city dating back to 2011, but did not provide further comment.

The City Attorney's Office says the selection of WTO complied with all city ordinances.

"Miko left WTO in 2017 and receives no benefit from WTO's retention," Sisneros said.

A spokesperson for Denver Mayor Michael Johnston indicated the mayor was supportive of the contract and rates, saying it should "save the city money in the long run."