Colorado primary law — statutes, the state constitution and court rules — is published online by state bodies, not by commercial summary sites. The two places to start are the General Assembly's Office of Legislative Legal Services (OLLS) page for the Colorado Revised Statutes at leg.colorado.gov and the Colorado Judicial Department's main site at coloradojudicial.gov. The OLLS page is the one that explains what the official text is, links to the online statutes and court rules as hosted by the state's current printer, and offers downloadable title files. The Judicial Department site is where court forms, self-help pages and procedural information live. This guide explains how those pieces fit together and where the limits are.

What counts as the official text

The OLLS page states that the office edits, collates and revises the laws enacted each session, with annotations, and prints them each year, and that since 1997 the official set of statutes has been published annually in a softbound edition and an official CD-ROM edition (source: Colorado Revised Statutes — OLLS). The same page says the Colorado Revised Statutes are available on the internet as hosted by LexisNexis, described there as the current printer, together with the Colorado Court Rules, the Colorado Constitution and the United States Constitution.

Two practical consequences follow. First, court rules sit alongside the statutes in that same official online set, so you do not need a separate subscription to read the rules. Second, because the page describes the printer arrangement as it stood when retrieved, treat the wording and any link destinations as something to confirm on the live page rather than a permanent arrangement.

Certified versus uncertified copies

For most readers doing background research, the free materials are enough. The OLLS page states that uncertified and unannotated copies of the Colorado Revised Statutes may be downloaded for personal use, and that the office can provide electronic copies of specified statutory portions without charge, with additional fees applying if a printout must be certified.

If a certified copy is genuinely required, the page gives specifics: contact Nate Carr, Assistant to the Revisor of Statutes, and expect charges of $35 per hour for staff time isolating, formatting and preparing the material with a .25-hour minimum, $0.10 per page for data delivery, and an additional $2.00 certification fee. These are the state office's stated charges at retrieval — not a price offered by this site and not an estimate for any particular request. Confirm current amounts directly with the office before relying on them.

The page also notes that § 2-5-118, C.R.S., recognizes that persons, agencies or political subdivisions other than the General Assembly may publish, reprint or distribute the statutes. That statute's text was not part of the material reviewed for this guide, so nothing here interprets it; read the section itself if republication matters to you.

Downloading statute titles

OLLS maintains a separate download index for each session year. The 2025 page (2025 CRS Titles for Download) describes its files as uncertified printouts current with changes made by amendments, additions and repeals by the Seventy-fifth General Assembly at its First Extraordinary Session in August 2025. It lists HTML and DOCX files for the Colorado Constitution, an index, and Titles 1 through 44 — including Title 13, Courts and Court Procedure, and Title 14, Domestic Matters. A footnote on that page notes that some sections in Titles 8, 14, 30 and 39 are formatted exclusively as PDFs, supplied in a supplementary file.

The 2026 page (2026 CRS Titles for Download) follows the same structure and says its titles are current with changes made by the Seventy-fifth General Assembly at its Second Regular Session in 2026. That page also carries a notice that legacy session data is being migrated and that links to that data may not work at the time. Neither download set is described as certified text, and neither is a statement of current law generally — each describes one dated compilation.

Court rules, forms and procedure

Statutes tell you what the law says; the Judicial Department's pages tell you how courts describe their own forms and processes. Searching the department site for a form name returns results that mix self-help forms, instructions and explanatory pages. For example, a search results page for "Affidavit of Service" reported 1,379 results with a Self-Help Form identified as Form ID JDF98 (coloradojudicial.gov search). The same results list pages on service of process, residential evictions, protection orders, garnishment, judgments, probate estate opening and adoptions.

The result count and form identifier are a point-in-time snapshot, not a conclusion about which form applies to any situation, and the snippets are short excerpts rather than full guidance. Open the underlying page and read the instructions before using any form.

The self-help network can help you locate the right rule or form. The Judicial Department's page on Self-Represented Litigant Coordinators states that every judicial district has a Self-Help or Court Resource Center staffed by one or more coordinators, that they help people without a lawyer in many non-criminal matters, and that they cannot and do not provide legal advice or advocacy (Sherlocks page). The Denver self-help page describes its services as including help understanding court procedures, rules and terminology and finding applicable statutes and rules, and repeats that court staff cannot provide legal advice or representation, with services limited to litigants not represented by an attorney (Denver Courts Pro Se/Self-Help Centers).

Worked example (hypothetical)

Suppose a reader wants the statutory basis for a county civil matter under $25,000 and the rule governing service. A workable order is: open the OLLS statutes page to reach the official online set; read Title 13 (Courts and Court Procedure) for the statutory framework; read the court rules in the same official online set for procedure; then check the Judicial Department site for the specific form and its instructions. If a step is unclear, contact the coordinator for your judicial district listed on the Sherlocks page. This is an illustration of navigation order only — it is not advice about any case, and it does not tell you which provisions govern your situation.

Practical limitations to keep in view

  • Dates matter. A download set reflects one session. Confirm which version you are reading before quoting a section.
  • Uncertified text is uncertified. For filings requiring certification, use the OLLS certified-copy process and confirm fees and contacts directly.
  • Link instability is real. The 2026 page's migration notice means some older session links may fail; work from the current index page.
  • Search results are not guidance. Result counts, form identifiers and snippets are leads, not answers.
  • No deadlines or predictions here. This site does not calculate deadlines, predict outcomes or advise on a case.

Where to go next

If you are choosing between courts, statutes, attorney verification and self-help starting points, use the source finder to select a topic and task and get the verified official URL plus a short note on what is there. If you want to know what court self-help staff can and cannot do, read Use Colorado court self-help resources. If you are checking whether someone may practice law in Colorado, see Verify a Colorado attorney. To organize your own notes before speaking with a lawyer, see Prepare a question for a Colorado attorney. This publication is an independent Colorado legal education and primary-source navigation resource; it is not a law firm and does not provide legal services.