The Montezuma-Cortez Re-1 school district is cutting ties with a highly controversial attorney who has worked for the district for the past four years.
On Tuesday, the school board voted unanimously to accept the Front Range-based firm of Lyons Gaddis as its legal counsel beginning the next day.
The board voted in February to put out a request for proposals for new counsel.
It had been largely relying on Brad Miller of the Colorado Springs-based Miller Farmer Carlson Law firm.
Miller is a major figure in conservative circles who is known for pushing right-wing education policies.
Critics say he embroils districts in costly lawsuits and pushes culture-war efforts. However, he has strong supporters as well.
In February, a District Court judge in Teller County ordered some $149,000 in attorney’s fees and court costs to be paid to a parent who sued the Woodland Park school board for violating state open meetings law, according to reporting by the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition. The board’s attorney is another member of the Miller Farmer Carlson Law firm.
The Montrose County School District recently hired Miller Farmer Carlson Law to represent it.
A parent in Pueblo County School District 70 filed a formal criminal complaint with the state Attorney General’s Office in February that alleges Miller was involved in a “pay to play” bribery scheme with the former District 70 board president and ER BOCES (Education Re-envisioned Board of Cooperative Educational Services), which Miller was instrumental in founding.
A small school in District 70, Riverstone Academy, which is being called “the first public Christian school,” was reportedly created recently 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.
The complaint with the attorney general’s office says there was “a clear ‘quid pro quo’ where ErBOCES and Brad Miller conferred a pecuniary benefit (a six-figure salary employment contract) upon a public servant, Anne Ochs, specifically to influence her official discretion regarding the approval of a "test case" school project (Riverstone).”
Ochs was the president of the District 70 board. She has since resigned.
“Ms. Ochs accepted this benefit, signed the contract 15 days prior to her vote, and knowingly failed to disclose her financial interest, in direct violation of Colorado law,” the complaint says.
It says Miller, legal counsel for ER BOCES, had emailed Ochs in June 2025 requesting a fast-tracked MOU for the Riverstone project by June 24, 2025, saying the project was intended as a legal test case to challenge state/federal laws.
Five days after Miller's request, ER BOCES executed a formal employment contract with Ochs to be HSE program coordinator, according to the complaint.
Then, while she was already a contracted employee of ER BOCES, Ochs presided over a District 70 board meeting on June 24, 2025, moved to approve the MOU, and voted for it, without disclosing any conflict of interest, the complaint says.
Miller has reportedly called the complaint “silly and frivolous.”
During discussion Tuesday, Re-1 board members expressed concern about the swift change from Miller’s firm to Lyons Gaddis. Member Laura DeWitt said it should be possible to employ the legal firms simultaneously while Miller works to transfer any ongoing work to the new firm.
