Neela Eyunni (Law Week Colorado) -- For most lawyers a good year consists of a steady book of business and consistently satisfied clients. For Chantell Taylor, it includes going after a number of Colorado's most prominent officials and organizations, making her few public-sector friends in the process.

The director of Colorado Ethics Watch, a nonprofit nonpartisan watchdog group, made headlines by taking Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey to court, filing a complaint against Secretary of State Mike Coffman and investigating the state's new Independent Ethics Commission. Taylor said her main objective is to serve as a voice for those who have concerns about their local government but don't have an outlet or the resources to hold their public officials accountable.

Before joining Ethics Watch Taylor directed an international education campaign promoting fair trade policies for the Washington D.C.-based nonprofit Public Citizen. After turning her attention to law, she worked for LeBouef Lamb Green & MacRae LLP and later joined Perkins Coie's litigation group in Denver. The California native received her undergraduate degree from the University of Colorado and attended the University of Denver's Sturm College of Law.

Despite a pay cut, Taylor said she has never regretted the move from private practice into public service.

"I've always felt that if I'm going to drop my children off at day care for an eight-hour day that I better really love what I'm doing, and the advantage we get here is that we really feel passionately about our work," she said.

Taylor has two daughters, 5-year old Veda and 3-year old Riley, with husband Matt Miles. In explaining her job to them, Taylor said, "I tell them that mommy makes sure everyone is following the rules."

Her co-workers at Perkins Coie said they were sad to lose her but felt the new position would be a good fit.

"She was one of our best lawyers, but we were not at all surprised that she decided to leave because she was always a dedicated public servant," said Norton Cutler, of counsel to the firm.

Colorado Ethics Watch was founded in August 2006 and modeled after its parent organization Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW, in Washington, D.C. CREW decided to develop a branch of the organization in Colorado because there was a vacant niche for a legal watchdog group focusing on government ethics, Taylor said.

Attacking prominent public officials, however, has also made Taylor a target herself, earning her the nickname "Chantella the Hun" among critics.

Wearing a floral wrap dress and silver hoop earings, the 35-year old attorney hardly resembles the 5th century barbarian warrior who sought to conquer Western Europe. As for her "army," Ethics watch has three full time staff members.

Senior counsel Luis Toro and research director Doug Staggs were both recruited by Taylor. The team works out of a bright green office suite located above the Colorado Athletic Club, which is filled with motley decor that Taylor said is a result of operating on a shoe-string budget.

Taylor has particularly come under fire from Republicans who feel she has a liberal bias. The political website Face the State has recently published an invititation list to the 2006 Colorado Democracy Alliance election night party, which said Taylor is a CoDA strategy group member. The event was held during a time she was acting director of Colorado Ethics Watch. Taylor said she had never heard of the strategy group and attributes her presence on the list to years of being politically active in Colorado before heading Ethics Watch.

While Taylor acknowledges working on the congressional campaign of Democratic U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette and having ties to political organizations, she said she has remained politically neutral since joining Ethics Watch.

"I believe a corrupt or unethical elected official is just that regardless of what party they come from," she said.

Many Republicans, however, aren't sold on Taylor's new nonpartisan status. They point to her track record this year as evidence that she hasn't left her Democratic political affiliations behind.

"The people she targets are Republicans who are moving up," Secretary of State Mike Coffman said.

In April, Colorado Ethics Watch filed a complaint with the new state ethics commission against Coffman. It claims that he used his official time as secretary of state to campaign for Congress. Coffman denied the allegations and maintained that he followed all the campaign rules. He also said the charges were politically motivated and that Colorado Ethics Watch took no action against Mayor John Hickenlooper or Gov. Bill Ritter for raising funds for the Democratic National Convention while working in an official capacity.

When she does go after Democrats, the are usually low-level officials who get a slap on the wrist, said Coffman, who was listed on the top of Taylor's Ethics Roundup this year, an annual report of the "most corrupt" public officials. The report, which is modeled after CREW's list of federal officials, included six Republicans, two Democrats and two unaffiliated officials.

As a 501(c)(3) organization, which allows contributions to be tax deductible, Colorado Ethics Watch is prohibited from explicitly or implicitly endorsing any candidate or political party. Republicans argue that Taylor has found a loophole in the system and is using the law to raise opposition to their party, therefore fueling support for the Democrats.

Taylor called the partisan accusations a distraction used by Republican targets who don't have any other excuse for their behavior.

She defended Colorado Ethics Watch's track record this year, highlighting the action it took against the Independent Ethics Commission which Taylor referred to as a "major project." The Independent Ethics Commission, or IEC, is a bipartisan organization formed out of Amendment 41. Ethics Watch has closely monitored the group's actions to ensure it is enforcing ethics rules across all branches of state government and in an open manner.

In June, Taylor provided testimony at an IEC hearing, urging committee members to remove or amend proposed rules that contradicted the constitional mandate that created the organization. Ethics Watch also filed a complaint in Denver District Court against the IEC for failure to disclose its own public records. Overall, Taylor said she is confident in the work that she does and receives much more fan mail than hate mail.

In addition to their work on the Independent Ethics Commission, Taylor said she is proud of the accomplishments Ethics Watch has made this year on campaign finance.

This month, the Republican-founded Senate Majority Fund, a nonprofit political organization was fined $1,000 in a cased filed by Ethics Watch for failure to report campaign spending. "In the campaign finance arena, there really wasn't one (organization) that was proactively using legal tools and hard-hitting legal action to hold groups and individials accountable for all these standards until we came around," Taylor said.

However, her call for transparency in campaign finance has raised questions of Ethics Watch's own openness. The organization does not release the names of its donors. Scott Shires, head of the Senate Majority Fund, said that the disclosure of contributors solidifies his belief that Democrats are paying her salary, therefore influencing the cases that she choses.

"She is so adamantly a mouthpiece only for the Democratic Party that she is treading a fine line of ethics herself," he said.

Taylor defended the concealment of funding, saying the organization is merely honoring the requests of donors to remain anonymous. She insisted Ethics Watch's selection of cases is not influenced by contributors but rather its mission statement, which affirms it will take on issues which undermine state and local government. The organization also pursues matters that have potential to make advancements in the law, Taylor said.

"We really look for cases that are going to solidify what we think is abundantly clear in code and constitution but is not actually being applied in practice," she said.

As for the future, Taylor said her work is far from over. She hopes to further develop Ethics Watch's resources and expand outside the Denver metro area. Taylor's favorite office decoration is a plant her husband gave to her for Ethics Watch's first anniversary. "It grows with our office," she said.

In addition, Taylor plans to highlight more ethical conduct of public servants rather than just unethical behavior, which includes a list of the most ethical officials in next year's Ethics Roundup.

However, armed with a thick skin, Taylor said she has no intention of getting soft on her targets.

"Now, I think groups and officials are on notice there there is a watchdog in town that won't just call them out on isses in the press but will actually take them to court," she said.