Why Choose Me To Help You?

EXPERIENCE MATTERS

Karen Cody-Hopkins

Karen Cody-Hopkins has a unique ability to help individuals, couples, and small business owners in financially stressed circumstances.  She has filed hundreds of Chapter 7 and 13 bankruptcies in Colorado for a wide variety of debtors. But since 2006, Karen has focused her practice on student loan cases. She met a single mother with a severely disabled child and $250,000 in student loan debt she could not keep up with. She had already filed bankruptcy so we filed to get her federal student loans discharged through a bankruptcy adversary case. After winning that case, other lawyers started referring student loan cases to me. Since then I have handled thousands of student loan cases of every type possible.

I began my legal practice in Minnesota in 1993 and relocated to Colorado in 2002.  Having been a lawyer, entrepreneur/small business owner of a legal technology company, running my law firm, a Fortune 500 company marketing professional, and business consultant, I can advise clients from a number of perspectives.  

My early legal career included private practice at law firms, marketing director for the Minnesota State Bar Association, and extensive contract work for various lawyers, law firms, and businesses.  I have familiarity with a broad range of legal and business issues, especially in the areas impacting small businesses. Originally, as an Associate with the Minnesota law firm, Zimmerman Reed, PLLP, I focused my practice in the areas of class actions and multi-district litigation as well as the development of legal technology. Before focusing on student loans, I worked on a number of federal multi-district class actions  such as In re Orthopedic Bone Screw Products Liability Litigation, MDL-1014 and In re: Diet Drugs Litigation, MDL-1203.  I was also Director of Administration for a law firm and a Founder and Chief Operating Officer of a legal technology company.

After moving to Colorado in 2002, I joined Charles Lilley & Associates, P.C. where I filed chapter 7 and 13 bankruptcies and worked on securities fraud, consumer, and antitrust class action cases as well as my first student loan cases.  I moved to a larger bankruptcy firm in 2009 where I continued to represent clients needing chapters 7 or 13 or with student loan issues.  When that firm disbanded in 2011, I started my own firm to serve clients with student loan issues or who needed to file chapter 7 and chapter 13. I also advise and lobby on behalf of people facing student loan debt problems. Today, most of my cases are student loan cases including those in bankruptcy as well as state and federal court. I have taught student loan law to other lawyers and am a very active contributor to three national lawyer listservs concerning student loans.

• B.A. from Smith College [Government major and a nine-month internship at the U.S. House of Representatives.]

• M.B.A. from the Booth School of Business, University of Chicago [Specialization in Marketing]

• J.D. from Mitchell Hamline School of Law [Operations Editor for the Hamline Law Review]

• Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) research for the Minnesota. Supreme Court’s ADR Task Force

• Production editor for the treatise, Advising Minnesota Corporations and Other Business Organizations (Michie).

• 2013 & 2020 Graduate of Josh Cohen’s Student Loan Law Workshop

• Attended most CLEs on student loans since 2013 by NCLC, NACBA, NACA, etc.

• Admitted to all Colorado federal and state Courts.

• Published case: In re Toxvard, 485 B.R. 423 (Bankr. Colo. 2013)

CLEs & Classes Taught:

• Student Loans in Bankruptcy: Part I: Triage for Bankruptcy Attorneys, NACBA Annual Convention, April 27, 2024

• Student Loans & Bankruptcy: 2023 Update with Tara Salinas, for DebtorsCounsel, August 17, 2023

• Federal Student Loans: Major Changes 2022 – 2023, COBAR CLE. December 13, 2022 by Karen Cody-Hopkins & Tara Salinas

• Federal Student Loan 2022 Changes As They Relate To Bankruptcy, NACBA, September 29, 2022 by Karen Cody-Hopkins & Ed Boltz

• Adding Non-Bankruptcy Student Loan Resolution To Your Practice, NACBA, April 7, 2022 by Karen Cody-Hopkins

• T.I.L.E & CCBA PRESENT: 2016 INSOLVENCY SEMINAR, (Some People Call it Bankruptcy) “Case Law Update,” February 23, 2017 by Karen Cody-Hopkins & Lois Gray.

• “The Many Sides of Bankruptcy Law: ‘Student Loans and Bankruptcy’” Colorado Bar Association’s CLE, March 3, 2016 by Karen Cody-Hopkins & Mike Eppers, College Assist.

• “Student Loan Practice Tips and Malpractice Traps: What Every Attorney Needs to Know” LAWLINE’s CLE, September 26, 2014 by Karen Cody-Hopkins & Nancy Cavey.

• “What You Don't Know About Student Loans... And should!” for Colorado Consumer Bankruptcy Association’s Spring CLE, March 26, 2013, by Karen Cody-Hopkins.

• “Get Smart: Decoding Bankruptcy Dilemmas - Student Loans, Taxes & Creditor Abuses” for Complete Picture’s CLE, March 2, 2012 by Karen Cody-Hopkins.

Testimony & Legislation

• Testified before Colorado House & Senate Committees in 2019 & 2021 in favor of student loan related bills

• Member of Colorado Exemption Laws Advocacy Group

• Cohen Student Loan Law Workshop Graduates Group

• National Association of Student Loan Lawyers, Founder & 2023 Vice President

• National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys [NACBA] and its Listservs

  • Received the 2022 Hammes-Shulman award for significant legislative and advocacy contributions made by a NACBA member.

• National Association of Consumer Advocates [NACA] and its Student Loan Group

• Colorado and Denver Bar Associations and its Bankruptcy Sub-Section, Business Law Section, and Consumer Law Protection Committee

• Colorado Consumer Bankruptcy Association

• Faculty of Federal Advocates

Support:

National Consumer Law Center & the Student Loan Borrower Assistance Project

From Karen:

I feel your student loan pain — After four years of college and five years for my MBA and JD, I know something about paying off student loan debt. I only have a few more thousand to pay. But I went to college and professional schools when colleges were much more affordable and student loan interest was lower. My clients have a harder time understanding today’s much more complex student loan environment, let alone paying for their loans..

I also like Welsh corgis, reading mysteries, my husband, my friends and my family. I do not like my wheelchair, capitalized interest or debt collectors who break the rules. Being disabled in my 50’s from a spinal cord problem means I have to watch my stamina, but I am passionate in helping people with student loan and financial problems.

~ Staff ~

Tracy Teitelbaum - Paralegal

Windee Patterson - Paralegal

Stefanie Blackburn - Paralegal

Suzanne Fey-Gaiser - Staff Assistant