In a move that signals a change in direction, the Montezuma-Cortez School District has put out a request for proposals for new legal counsel.
The district has for four years largely relied on Brad Miller of Miller Farmer Carlson Law, which is based in Colorado Springs. Miller is a controversial attorney known for supporting right-wing education agendas.
The Re-1 board voted 5 to 1 on Tuesday night to authorize the RFP for new general legal counsel. The five trustees supporting the move were all newly elected in November of last year, while the single “no” vote came from Mike Lynch, one of just two incumbents on the board. (The other incumbent, Jason Hall, was absent.)
During the meeting’s public comment session, Cayce Hamerschlag said she has heard it argued that the current counsel has saved the district money by keeping it out of trouble.
“I’m not convinced that Brad Miller’s firm has been cheaper for the district,” she said. “There has not been a publicly presented side-by-side comparison of legal counsel expenses before and after his tenure.”
She said that in some other districts, Miller’s firm has lost lawsuits for actions taken while under his counsel.
Earlier this month, a District Court judge in Teller County ordered approximately $149,000 in attorney’s fees and court costs to be paid to a parent who sued the Woodland Park school board for a violation of state open meetings law, according to reporting by the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition. The school board’s attorney is Bryce Carlson of the Miller Farmer Carlson Law firm.
“There are plenty of questions about whether this is the right firm for our district and if he is indeed keeping us out of trouble and costing us less,” Hamerschlag told the board.
Miller has been widely criticized on social media, but also has strong supporters However, questions about his agenda seem to be coming up frequently across the state.
In February, the Montrose County School District Board voted 4 to 3 to table a proposal to hire Miller’s law firm, according to the Montrose Press. An overflow crowd attended the meeting, with many speaking against hiring the firm.
The Pueblo 70 School District, which Miller represents, is also reportedly considering ending its relationship with him.
A small school in that district, Riverstone Academy, which is being called “the first public Christian school,” was reportedly created in order to trigger a lawsuit that could end the ban on religious schools receiving public funding. That school is represented by four law firms, including Miller’s, according to the online newspaper Chalkbeat.
https://www.chalkbeat.org/colorado/2026/02/18/christian-public-school-riverstone-academy-sues-state/
During discussion following the public comments at Tuesday’s meeting, Lynch said that the district’s previous general counsel, the Boulder-based Caplan and Earnest, had not always provided solid guidance.
“There were two or three incidents of advice given to the district that were not accurate advice or good advice,” Lynch said. “The superintendent at the time [Tom Burris] knew the law better than the legal counsel did and he raised those issues each time.”
Lynch said he believed that after the third time the legal advice was questioned, the district received an email from Caplan and Earnest saying they could no longer represent the district.
“They cut us off. We did not cut them off,” he said.
Lynch also said it would not be feasible to compare costs between one legal advisor and another.
“There’s a huge difficulty in that,” he said. “Each legal advisor spends time on issues that come up while that legal representation is engaged.” He said it doesn’t make sense to try to compare how much time is being spent on one situation vs. a completely different situation.
“It would be almost impossible to make an apples-to-apples comparison,“ he said.
Later in the meeting, however, the board moved ahead with directing Superintendent Eddie Ramirez to issue the RFP for new general counsel.
