A pioneer in the field of elder law, Marco Chayet’s career testifies to the belief that law is at its best when it protects the vulnerable.
As founder and managing partner of Chayet & Danzo, Chayet has spent three decades demonstrating that the most complex legal puzzles require as much emotional intelligence as legal acumen.
A Family Legacy
Chayet’s understanding of the human stakes of law is rooted in personal experience. In the mid-1990s, while Chayet was interning under future Gov. Bill Ritter at the Denver District Attorney’s Office, his grandmother became the subject of a landmark probate case regarding her care and finances as her health declined.
“It opened my eyes,” Chayet recalled. “At the time, elder law wasn’t a well-developed area of practice. I saw that despite diminished capacity, people shouldn’t lose their right to due process or dignity.”
Then on track for a career as a prosecutor, he pivoted, soon joining the few lawyers in Colorado practicing in the burgeoning field of elder law.
The Napkin Blueprint
By 2001, Chayet was determined to build a firm reflecting his dignity-driven approach to elder law. He outlined his vision for Chayet & Danzo on a couple of cocktail napkins at the Bull & Bush Brewery. Today those napkins, which include a checklist ranging from malpractice insurance to firm structure, are framed in Chayet’s office.
“Every day they remind me that this is not something I inherited,” he said.
Chayet’s vision has grown into a 22-person team with an intentionally person-centric culture. The firm doesn’t have a “receptionist,” for example, but a “director of first impressions.” Likewise, he aims to “bring attorneys into the firm who have high emotional intelligence,” he said.
“We are often the emergency room doctors of the law,” Chayet continued. “These are the most traumatic events in a client’s life. You have to be more than an attorney; you have to be a counselor.”
A ‘Lawyer’s Lawyer’
Chayet’s expertise has made him a “lawyer’s lawyer,” he said. Personal injury, family law and criminal attorneys often reach out when their cases intersect with incapacity or special needs trusts. His work is broad, covering guardianships, conservatorships and public benefits.
Chayet said he is honored to serve as a court-appointed guardian ad litem and as public administrator for the 18th Judicial District. In these roles, he frequently represents the “unfriended,” or individuals who have no family or resources to advocate for them.
“These issues are not limited by socioeconomic circumstances,” he said. “They affect the most modest estates and the indigent just as much as the high-net-worth-families you read about in the paper. It’s all the same issues, maybe just with different zeros.”
Special Needs Planning
A significant portion of Chayet’s practice involves special needs planning. As with his grandmother, Chayet brings a family connection to the legal matter.
“When I sit across from a parent of a child on the spectrum or a child with catastrophic injuries, I’m not just their lawyer,” he said. “I’ve been in those rooms. I know the social-emotional toll.”
His experience also informed his authorship of the special needs planning chapter in the Colorado Handbook of Elder Law (Colorado Edition).
Investing in the Future
Beyond his practice, Chayet serves as an adjunct professor at the University of Colorado Law School, his alma mater, and endowed the school’s first elder law scholarship, formalizing a discipline that barely existed when he began his career.
“When I graduated, the dean asked me what elder law even meant,” Chayet said, laughing. “Now, students are coming to law school specifically to go into this field. It’s in the consciousness now.”
Chayet served on the Supreme Court Nominating Commission and was an original commissioner for the Office of Public Guardianship. He remains a trustee for the Next50 initiative, a $250 million foundation dedicated to aging issues, and serves on the board of the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, where he advocates for expanding access to the arts for aging and disabled communities. He is a member of the Academy of Special Needs Planners and the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys.
“Elder law is a passion and a calling,” he said. “I’m honored to be part of it.”