The attorney general of Colorado is the chief legal officer of the U.S. state of Colorado and the head of the Colorado Department of Law, a principal department of the Colorado state government. The office is established by Article IV of the Colorado Constitution. The attorney general is elected statewide to a four-year term on the same cycle as the governor of Colorado and is limited to two consecutive terms. The incumbent is Democrat Phil Weiser, who has served since January 8, 2019. Weiser was re-elected in 2022 and is term-limited in 2027. He is the Democratic nominee for governor in 2026. The next attorney general election is November 3, 2026.
The attorney general and the Department of Law together are known as the Colorado Attorney General's Office. The office is the legal counsel to the executive and judicial branches and to the state auditor, enforces consumer protection and antitrust laws, prosecutes criminal appeals and some complex white-collar crimes, administers Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST), and represents the state in civil and appellate litigation. The office is in the Ralph L. Carr Colorado Judicial Center at 1300 Broadway in Denver.
Powers and duties Most of the attorney general's powers are statutory. Under Colorado Revised Statutes section 24-31-101, the attorney general is the chief legal representative of the state and the legal counsel and advisor of each department, division, office, board, commission, bureau, and agency of state government. The office does not provide legal counsel to the legislative branch except for the state auditor. Since 1973, legal services for state agencies have been provided centrally through the Department of Law. Agencies are billed under rates set in the annual Long Bill, as described below.
The attorney general: appears for the state and prosecutes and defends civil and criminal actions in which the state is a party or is interested when required to do so by the governor; prosecutes and defends causes in the appellate courts in which the state is a party or is interested; issues written legal opinions to the General Assembly, the governor, the lieutenant governor, the secretary of state, the state treasurer, the executive director of the Department of Revenue, and the commissioner of education; may independently initiate civil and criminal actions to enforce specified state laws, including the Colorado Consumer Protection Act, state antitrust law, the Unfair Practices Act, fair housing provisions, Medicaid fraud statutes, wage and employment-security laws (subject to statutory coordination with the Department of Labor and Employment), and several housing and tenant-protection statutes; may appoint deputy and assistant attorneys general and, at sole discretion, special assistant attorneys general except as limited by the exclusive-counsel rules in Colorado Revised Statutes section 24-31-111.
The office also has original or primary authority over enforcement of consumer protection and antitrust laws, prosecution of criminal appeals and some complex white-collar crimes, the statewide grand jury, training and certification of peace officers, and certain natural-resource and environmental matters. It works concurrently with Colorado's 22 district attorneys and other law-enforcement agencies. The attorney general is the official custodian of certain settlement funds in cases in which the state is a party. The Department of Law does not provide legal services to private individuals except where statute authorizes public-facing work, primarily consumer and fraud complaints.
The constitution also assigns the attorney general a role in appointing members of judicial nominating commissions. By statute the attorney general is one of three members of the State Claims Board, with the state treasurer and the executive director of the Department of Personnel and Administration.
Qualifications and election Article IV, Section 4 of the Colorado Constitution requires the attorney general to be at least 25 years old, a licensed attorney of the Colorado Supreme Court in good standing, a citizen of the United States, and a Colorado resident for at least two years immediately before the election.
The attorney general is chosen at the statewide general election in federal midterm years (2018, 2022, 2026, and so on). The term is four years, beginning on the second Tuesday of January following the election. The 1990 Colorado Term Limits Amendment limits the attorney general, like the other statewide constitutional officers, to two consecutive terms. A former officeholder may run again after at least four years out of office. Serving at least one-half of a term as an appointed replacement counts as a full term for term-limit purposes.
The annual salary is set by statute and may not be increased or diminished during a term. The 2026 salary is $117,677. An Independent State Elected Official Pay Commission recommended $170,000 effective January 1, 2027, subject to inflation adjustments from 2028 through 2030.
Recent elections
In the 2018 Democratic primary Weiser defeated state representative Joe Salazar, 301,354 (50.40%) to 296,551 (49.60%). Weiser then defeated Republican George Brauchler in the general election. In 2022 Weiser defeated Republican John Kellner. Certified write-in candidate Stanley Thorne received 1,772 votes.
Weiser is term-limited in 2027 and ran for governor instead of a third term as attorney general. The secretary of state certified the June 30, 2026, primary on July 24, 2026. A biennial HTML abstract had not been posted as of August 2026; candidate totals below follow Ballotpedia's certified figures. Secretary of State Jena Griswold won the Democratic nomination. Republican Michael Allen defeated David Willson. Griswold and Allen are the major-party nominees for the November 3, 2026, general election.
Vacancies If the office becomes vacant, the governor nominates a successor with the consent of the Senate. The appointee holds office until a successor is elected and qualified. If the Senate is not in session, the governor may appoint someone to discharge the duties until the Senate meets. The attorney general is not in the gubernatorial line of succession in Colorado.
Department of Law The Department of Law is one of the 20 principal departments of the executive branch. The attorney general is its chief executive officer. For FY 2025-26 the Joint Budget Committee recorded an original appropriation of $152,427,568 and 666.8 full-time equivalent positions, later restated after supplementals as $151,902,969 with the same FTE count. The enacted FY 2026-27 Long Bill (H.B. 26-1410) appropriated $163,772,155. A majority of the budget is reappropriated funds, primarily the Legal Services Cash Fund paid by client agencies. The department's General Fund share of statewide operating appropriations is about 0.2 percent.
Legal services to state agencies Before 1973, state agencies hired their own lawyers, which the Joint Budget Committee has said sometimes produced conflicting legal positions among agencies. In 1973 the state centralized agency counsel in the Attorney General's Office. Agencies are generally prohibited from retaining outside counsel except when the Department of Law cannot provide the work, in which case services are still provided under the office's supervision.
The Legal Services to State Agencies section is the department's largest budget block. In FY 2025-26 it was about $68.4 million, or 44.9 percent of the department's total appropriation, for an assumed 550,080 billed hours. Two classes of employees bill client agencies: attorneys and legal assistants. Each billing attorney and legal assistant is assumed to provide 1,800 hours of legal services a year. All attorneys bill at one uniform attorney rate. All legal assistants bill at one uniform legal-assistant rate. The "blended" legal rate is a weighted average of those two rates. It is the figure used to convert each agency's estimated hours into a Long Bill appropriation.
From 1973 through FY 2016-17 the department billed agencies each month for hours actually worked the prior month. Starting in FY 2017-18 the General Assembly switched to a common-policy model: each agency is appropriated hours equal to its three-year average of actual use, multiplied by the blended rate. The Department of Law then bills each client one-twelfth of that appropriation every month. The Joint Budget Committee has said the change gave the department more staffing certainty and reduced the use of higher-cost contract counsel at year-end, while making the actual year-to-year cost of representation less transparent. Payments are credited to the Legal Services Cash Fund created in Colorado Revised Statutes section 24-31-108(4).
The annual Long Bill footnote caps the rates the department may charge. For FY 2026-27 the General Assembly's intent is that hourly rates not exceed the following:
+ Legal services billing rates, FY 2026-27 Billing class Maximum hourly rate Attorney $139.50 Legal assistant $87.76 Blended rate (used for agency appropriations) $132.50
The prior-year (FY 2025-26) caps were $146.05 for attorneys, $98.03 for legal assistants, and a blended rate of $138.82. Rates move each year with salary, benefit, and operating costs. Nine clients each used more than 18,000 hours in FY 2024-25, led by the Department of Regulatory Agencies (125,265 hours). The Department of Corrections billed 27,416 hours. Statewide actual hours that year were 556,174.
Seat The department occupies the Ralph L. Carr Colorado Judicial Center at 1300 Broadway in Denver, which also houses the Colorado Supreme Court, the Colorado Court of Appeals, and related judicial offices. The Attorney General's Office has used floors 6 through 10 of the office tower.
In the early morning of January 2, 2024, Brandon Olsen broke into the building, took keys from a security guard at gunpoint, started fires on the seventh floor, and fired a gun through windows. He later called 911 and surrendered. Sprinklers ran for more than two hours. Judicial officials told lawmakers that repair costs could exceed $35 million, with substantial rebuilds of the fifth, sixth, and seventh floors and smoke circulated through the HVAC system. District Attorney John Walsh later described the repair cost as "many millions of dollars." Spokesman Lawrence Pacheco said Attorney General's Office staff worked remotely and from the State Services Building and that the office did not lose critical daily-work records. Authorities said the break-in did not appear related to threats against justices after the court's 2023 ruling on Donald Trump's primary-ballot eligibility.
The office tower partially reopened to the public on October 8, 2024, starting with floors 1 and 2. Full reconstruction was projected into 2025. Joint Budget Committee staff later noted ongoing Carr Center renovation, including furniture, targeted by January 1, 2027, and a possible leased-space budget amendment. Olsen pleaded guilty to arson in 2025 and was sentenced in December 2025 to eight years in prison. Prosecutors had asked for 14 years. He also agreed to pay restitution in an amount set by the court.
Leadership As of 2026 the senior officers of the department include: Attorney General Phil Weiser Chief Deputy Attorney General Natalie Hanlon Leh, who oversees litigation and legal counsel to executive and judicial agencies and may act for the attorney general except as to duties the constitution assigns to the officeholder personally Solicitor General Shannon Stevenson, the state's chief appellate lawyer under the attorney general's supervision Associate Chief Deputy Attorney General Tanja Wheeler