Colorado — Centennial
The Colorado case lifecycle.
Six stages, and the gates that must come in ORDER — each pinned to the loaded corpus.
TrialVector is software — not a lawyer, not a law firm, and not a substitute for one. It provides legal information of a general nature, not legal advice; it prepares no documents for you in Colorado today; and it forms no attorney-client relationship.
STAGE 1
Before filing — the gates that come FIRST
Against a public entity, the CGIA notice runs 182 days from discovery and is jurisdictional — the suit cannot exist without it. A professional-negligence claim needs the certificate of review within 60 days after service. And the limitations ladder (2/3/6 years on the discovery accrual) is already running.
STAGE 2
Filing and the theater decision
District court is the constitutional floor; the county court's $25,000 line and the small-claims $7,500 room (with its own representation statute) are statutory; water matters belong ONLY to the water judge of the right division.
Colo. Const. art. VI, § 9C.R.S. § 13-6-104C.R.S. § 37-92-203
STAGE 3
Service and the answer
The 21-day answer clock is order-carried (Rule Change 2024(08) prints 12(a)(1) itself). This platform computes it raw with the Rule-6 boundary stated — and the served flow explains why there is no answer builder here.
STAGE 4
The pre-CMO window
Discovery before the Case Management Order is capped by the order-carried 26(d) print — the cap is stated; the 26(b)(2) numbers live at the vendor boundary.
STAGE 5
Motions pace the middle
The 121 § 1-15 clocks are order-carried: response 21 (14 when trial is 42 days out or less), reply 7 (14 for Rule 56). The fee-shift trap rides every tort 12(b) motion.
STAGE 6
Judgment, interest, and after
Statutory interest compounds at 8% (medical debt capped at 3%); frivolous positions risk 13-17-102 fees. The appeal clock (C.A.R. 4) is NOT order-carried — it is named at the vendor boundary, and the appellate shield page says exactly that.