Denver Cerebral Palsy Lawyers

Cerebral palsy treatment in Denver

Children’s Hospital Colorado runs a Cerebral Palsy Program on the Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora. It follows children from birth into young adulthood. Orthopedic surgeons, rehabilitation physicians, physical and occupational therapists, orthotists and social workers share each child’s plan. The program places and manages intrathecal baclofen pumps, gives Botox and phenol injections for tight muscles, and refers children directly to the hospital’s Center for Movement and Gait Analysis. Its number is 720-777-2806.

Selective dorsal rhizotomy, a spinal nerve operation that lowers leg spasticity, is offered through the hospital’s Spasticity Management Clinic. Candidates are generally 4 to 10 years old with stiff legs but good underlying strength and control. A neurosurgeon, rehabilitation physician, neurologist and physical therapist evaluate each child, often with a gait lab video. After surgery a child spends 48 hours on bed rest, then moves to the inpatient rehabilitation unit; discharge usually comes four to six weeks later. Outpatient physical therapy at least twice a week continues for the first year, which matters for a family planning work leave and for what a life care plan has to cover.

Early intervention and family support in the Denver metro area

Early Intervention Colorado serves children from birth up to the third birthday. Anyone can make the referral, including a parent, through the state’s EI Colorado referral line at 833-733-3734. You do not need to wait for a diagnosis of cerebral palsy before calling. The evaluation that follows decides whether your child qualifies for therapy at home or in child care.

Parent to Parent of Colorado pairs a parent with a trained volunteer Support Parent who has raised a child with a similar condition. It has been a program of Ability Connection Colorado, founded as CP of Colorado, since 1998, and counts more than 2,800 parent members. For school and benefits disputes inside the city, AdvocacyDenver assigns individual advocates to children and adults with intellectual or developmental disabilities and their families. Its intake line is 303-974-2530.

Denver hospitals, NICU levels and the records trail

Two Denver area NICUs describe themselves as Level IV, the highest tier. Children’s Colorado’s unit on the Anschutz campus has 82 critical care beds and takes babies by referral and transport. HCA HealthONE Rocky Mountain Children’s at Presbyterian St. Luke’s, on North High Street, has an 84 bed Level IV NICU in the same building as a Level IV maternal care program, and says it receives hundreds of newborn transports a year.

Level III units, which care for babies born before 32 weeks, operate at UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital next to Children’s Colorado in Aurora, at Denver Health on Bannock Street, and at HealthONE Rose on East 9th Avenue. Rose sends babies who need more to its sister hospital, Rocky Mountain Children’s. These levels are each hospital’s own statement; we could not find a published state list.

Transfers are what make Denver cases slow to assemble. A baby delivered at Rose and moved to Presbyterian St. Luke’s, or delivered at University of Colorado Hospital and carried across the campus to Children’s Colorado, leaves the labor chart, fetal monitoring strips and cord gas results with one organization and the cooling, MRI and EEG records with another. Each has to be requested separately, and the first job in reviewing a Denver birth injury is a list of every hospital and physician group involved in the first 72 hours.

Claims against Denver Health

Denver Health and Hospital Authority runs the hospital at 777 Bannock Street. In Bakes v. Denver Health and Hospital Authority, 2025 COA 47, the Colorado Court of Appeals treated it as a public entity under the Colorado Governmental Immunity Act. That law requires written notice of a claim within 182 days after the injury is discovered (C.R.S. 24-10-109(1)), and the court called the notice a jurisdictional prerequisite. A late notice ends the claim, however strong the medical evidence is.

The damages rules differ too. The malpractice caps in C.R.S. 13-64-302 state that they do not apply to a health care institution that is a public entity under that act, so a Denver Health claim is measured against the Governmental Immunity Act’s own limits instead (HB24-1472, section 6). If your child was born at Denver Health, or treated there afterward, have a lawyer check the 182 day date before anything else.

Denver District Court and the metro counties

A Denver birth injury lawsuit is usually filed in Denver District Court, whose civil division sits in the City and County Building at 1437 Bannock Street. Colorado’s venue rule, C.R.C.P. 98(c), allows a tort case in the county where any defendant resides, in the plaintiff’s county if the defendants are served there, or in the county where the injury happened, as the Colorado Supreme Court laid out in Millet v. District Court (1998).

Not every Denver family’s case belongs downtown. University of Colorado Hospital and Children’s Colorado are in Aurora, outside the City and County of Denver, and a family living in Denver may have delivered at a hospital in a neighboring county. When the delivery happened in one county and the NICU care in another, the case can sometimes be brought in either, and choosing between them is a decision for the lawyer before filing.

Colorado deadlines and damages for a Denver claim

These are state rules, the same in Denver as in Grand Junction, and our Colorado cerebral palsy lawyers page covers them statewide.

A child hurt before age 6 can sue any time before turning 8 (C.R.S. 13-80-102.5), so a birth injury claim is due before the 8th birthday. Parents get two years from when they knew or should have known, and never more than three from the care itself. The cap on pain and suffering follows the date of the care: $300,000 before 2024, $415,000 for claims that accrued in 2024 or 2025 and were filed from 2025 on, and $530,000 for care in 2026. Within 60 days of serving the complaint, the family’s lawyer must file a certificate of review. A plaintiff’s own fault cuts the award by its share and bars it only when that fault is as great as the defendant’s (C.R.S. 13-21-111).

Choosing a Denver cerebral palsy lawyer

A Denver birth injury case often involves a delivering hospital, a transport team, a NICU across town and a physician group employed by none of them. The lawyer you choose should read fetal monitoring strips fluently, know at once whether the 182 day public entity notice applies, and have the money to keep obstetric, neonatal and pediatric neuroradiology experts on the case through trial. Ask who in the firm signs the certificate of review and which experts they consulted for it, because the answer shows whether the case was screened by someone in the right specialty.

Cerebral Palsy Center pairs families with experienced local birth injury lawyers in Denver and backs them with the financial resources of larger partner firms, so a case is not settled early because a small firm cannot afford to try it. The review is free. The lawyer advances the costs of the case and is repaid only from a recovery.

View all cerebral palsy lawyers in Colorado