Luis Toro Named Director of Non-Profit Legal Watchdog

DENVER - Today, Colorado Ethics Watch is pleased to announce that Luis Toro, its current senior counsel, will assume the role of director effective January 1, 2010.

Ethics Watch’s current director, Chantell Taylor, has accepted the position of general counsel for the U.S. Public Interest Research Group and the Public Interest Network, a national network of public interest advocacy groups.

“Ethics Watch plays a vital role in the enforcement of ethics standards in Colorado. Our legal actions effectively expose corruption, hold people accountable, and serve as a compelling deterrent to would-be offenders,” said Taylor, founding director of Colorado Ethics Watch.  “I am proud of what we have accomplished and pleased to be passing the baton to Luis, a brilliant attorney who will continue the same hard-hitting legal advocacy for which Ethics Watch is best known.”

Luis Toro was a litigation partner at Senn Visciano Kirschenbaum P.C. before joining Ethics Watch in early 2008. Prior, he was a law clerk to the Honorable Carlos F. Lucero of the United States Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, an instructor at the University of the Pacific’s McGeorge School of Law, and an intern at Natural Resources Defense Council. Luis writes about government ethics and campaign finance issues for Huffington Post Denver. Luis is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley School of Law.

“I look forward to building upon Ethics Watch’s legacy of using legal tools to promote transparency and accountability in Colorado government,” said Toro.  “The best intentioned laws are useless unless they are actually enforced, so it is critical that Ethics Watch continue the fight for clean and open government in our state."

For more information on Colorado Ethics Watch, visit www.coloradoforethics.org.

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Colorado Ethics Watch is a non-profit, legal watchdog group dedicated to identifying and exposing ethics issues in city, county and state governments in Colorado, ultimately holding public officials accountable.  Colorado Ethics Watch is the only state-specific project of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW). For more information, please visit www.coloradoforethics.org or call (303) 626-2100 or e-mail info@coloradoforethics.org.