Suzanne was born in a cabin in the Colorado Rocky Mountains. She comes from a fifth-generation Colorado family, with a background in community, family, environmentalism, business, alternative dispute resolution and academia. She has studied and worked from Colorado to Vermont, Paris to Alaska, San Francisco to Seattle, earning her bachelors chemistry and biology from Fort Lewis College, her law degree from Seattle University School of Law and Masters in Science and Law from Vermont Law School.
Suzanne has spent most of her life in Colorado and Alaska, practicing law, building businesses, engaging community, helping people build better lives. Her fundamental philosophy is that life can be wonderful, often it takes deep work, but the journey is better made when taken with innovative perspective, strength, integrity and diligence. To that end, she works closely with clients to understand the context of their lives and needs to help them determine their goals and arrive at their destinations with as much potential and resilience as possible.
Suzanne has owned and operated multiple businesses and is committed to the innovative use of entrepreneurship. She has worked with individuals, corporations, educational organizations and business incubators to help people bring their best ideas to successful fruition.Suzanne’s legal experience started when she worked for the best environmental lawyer in Colorado for two years in Denver. The firm amassed multimillion dollar judgments and settlements for Colorado citizens, helping to clean up Colorado. She moved to Alaska where She eventually opened her own law firm, keeping Alaska wild and its citizens safe. She worked on land use cases, native issues, domestic issues, business development and more. She won two cases before the Alaska Supreme Court securing both land use provisions and the ability for litigants who work for the common good to recover attorneys’ fees.
Suzanne then moved her growing family to the northern most tip of Alaska where she represented the North Slope Borough, a local government that covered 90,000 square miles with an annual budget of $360,000,000. Our territory included remote Alaskan villages as well as the Prudhoe Bay oilfields and the Artic National Wildlife Reserve. She helped the NSB navigate issues including regulations, capital projects, facility upkeep, housing, human resources, healthcare, risk assessment and was the point person for all municipal contracting. Yes, she did get to fly around in helicopters and planes to visit the villages and residents, count bowhead whales, and experience the polar ice cap. She saw multiple polar bears and walrus, snowy owls and caribou.
After five years Suzanne moved back to Colorado and reopened her law firm representing people in business, domestic issues and community organizing. She eventually was offered an amazing job in the San Luis Valley directing a burgeoning nonprofit land trust to build its wildlife and regenerative agriculture program. This land trust was funded by a historic hot springs that served 27,000 day visitors a year, which she also operated.
From there Suzanne was hired by the Western Colorado University’s Masters in Environmental Management Program to teach business and nonprofit development, leadership and collaboration, environmental law and more. To facilitate this, She was provided with a gorgeous 350 acre ranch along the Tomiche Creek where our mission was to build enterprise around regenerative agriculture, green building, renewable energy and wildlife. For their masters projects, her students developed the programs that built the new non-profit Coldharbour Institute.
In Fort Collins, for three years Suzanne served family law clients with the highest of legal services, including complex financial, business and child related issues. Her thirty years of experience allowed her to help her clients navigate a better future.In her 40 years of legal and business experience, Suzanne has represented diverse groups of clients in Colorado and Alaska. She is dedicated to helping build a healthy, positive, diverse and joyful future for all of us.Family, wilderness, and community engagement feed Suzanne’s soul.
PRACTICE AREAS
EDUCATION
ADMISSIONS
AFFILIATIONS
If you have legal insurance, please call 844.844.LYDA (844.844.5932)
844.844.9400
Denver:
5335 W. 48th Ave.
Ste. 501
Denver, CO 80212
855.855.9400
Los Angeles:
11845 W. Olympic Blvd.
Suite 1100W
Los Angeles, CA 90064
Santa Clarita:
28338 Constellation Road
Ste. 900
Santa Clarita, CA 91355
833.822.9400
Orlando:
4700 Millenia Blvd.
Suite 500
Orlando, FL 32839
855.855.9400
Boise area:
3597 East Monarch Sky Lane
Suite 240
Meridian, ID 83646
833.822.9400
Kansas City:
7280 NW 87th Terrace
Kansas City, MO 64153
Serving rest of Missouri remotely
833.822.9400
Nashville:
40 Burton Hills Blvd.
Ste. 200
Nashville, TN 37215
833.833.9400
Austin:
411 W Monroe St #6
Austin, TX 78704
DFW:
2833 Crockett St.
Fort Worth, TX 76107
Permian Basin & Monahans:
201 E. 4th St.
Monahans, TX 79756
855.855.9400
Seattle:
450 Alaskan Way South, Suite 200
Seattle, WA 98104