SENIOR ASSOCIATE ATTORNEY
1888 N. Sherman St., Suite 770
Denver, CO 80203
Phone: (720) 254-2377
Hi, I’m Taylor.
About Me
Taylor grew up in Mississippi and graduated with a degree in English from the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College at the University of Mississippi. She moved to Colorado to attend law school at the University of Denver, where she focused her studies on the substantive law defining constitutional rights and completed a J.D. Certificate Program in Constitutional Rights and Remedies. Outside of the classroom, she worked to protect, restore, and expand the rights of indigent and minority populations as a student attorney in the criminal defense clinic, as an intern with the Office of the Colorado State Public Defender, and as an extern with a civil rights organization advocating on behalf of incarcerated individuals in Colorado.
After law school, she began her career advocating for clients in criminal appellate and post-conviction proceedings. Throughout her ten years in practice, she has successfully argued numerous cases before the Colorado Court of Appeals involving criminal convictions for serious felony offenses. She has argued in the Colorado Supreme Court, and subsequently in the state legislature, to change a law that unfairly criminalized a mother’s efforts to seek medical benefits for her children. She has helped post-conviction clients withdraw pleas to avoid dire immigration consequences, obtain new trials with effective counsel, and reduce disproportionate sentences. She is persistent and passionate about achieving the best outcome for her clients while also working to effect comprehensive change in the criminal justice system.
Taylor’s Successes
Eight of Taylor’s appellate cases have resulted in favorable published opinions for criminal defendants:
People v. Chronis, 2025 COA 72 (Colo. App. Aug. 14, 2025) (when determining whether to grant a petition for deregistration as a sex offender under C.R.S. § 16-22-113(3)(c), a district court may only consider an expunged juvenile adjudication if the applicable expungement statute permits such consideration).
People v. Claycomb, 2025 COA 36 (Colo. App. Apr. 3, 2025) (when the jury asks for a definition of “proximate cause” and that phrase is used in jury instructions, the trial court must provide a definition).
People v. Smith, 531 P.3d 1051 (Colo. 2023) (the capital offenses exception to bail in the Colorado constitution no longer applies to defendants accused of class 1 felonies).
People v. Draper, 2021 COA 120 (Colo. App. Sept. 9, 2021) (the trial court erred by failing to instruct the jury on the definition of “universal malice,” an essential element of first-degree extreme indifference murder).
People v. Mentzer, 2020 COA 91 (Colo. App. Jun. 11, 2020) (the trial judge, a former prosecutor, should have recused herself because she had served in a supervisory capacity over the attorneys who investigated or prosecuted this case at the time they filed the charges against the defendant).
People v. Pratarelli, 2020 COA 33 (Colo. App. Feb. 27, 2020) (evidence was insufficient to establish first degree kidnapping because prosecution failed to establish that defendant forcibly seized his daughter).
Campbell v. People, 443 P.3d 72 (Colo. 2019) (police officer’s testimony regarding horizontal gaze nystagmus field-sobriety test was expert testimony, not lay testimony).
People v. Vidauri, 2019 COA 140 (Colo. App. 2019) (felony theft conviction reversed because the prosecution presented only evidence showing the total amount of benefits paid and failed to prove the value of the benefits the defendant obtained by deceit) (rev’d 486 P.3d 239 (Colo. 2021).
Taylor is admitted to practice law in Colorado, before the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, and before the United States District Court for the District of Colorado.