Andrew L. W. Peters

Overview

Andy Peters helps clients assert and defend their property rights.  Equally at home before city councils and the courts, Andy navigates complex entitlements processes, negotiates with governments, and delivers trial and appellate advocacy to achieve client objectives.  His practice spans land use and development approvals, eminent domain and takings cases, and matters concerning constitutional rights, sign regulation, and fair housing guarantees.  He also serves as an adjunct faculty member at the University of Denver’s Sturm College of Law, where he teaches Land Use Planning.

As a land use lawyer, Andy has represented individual homeowners to Fortune 500 companies across Colorado, with a growing emphasis in mountain jurisdictions including Summit County, Eagle County, and the Roaring Fork Valley and towns such as Breckenridge, Vail, Aspen, and Telluride. His work in these communities often involves affordable housing projects where he helps clients navigate property rights challenges within complex local regulatory frameworks. His projects range from single-property redevelopment approvals on the Front Range to crafting multi-year, multi-property agreements guaranteeing development rights in mountain resorts.  As a litigator, Andy has represented a similarly broad range of clients before state and federal trial and appeals courts, as well as regulatory and administrative bodies.  He has particular experience in disputes arising under the First, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments; Colorado’s state constitutional financing provisions; as well as the Fair Housing Act and Americans with Disabilities Act.  Additionally, as part of his experience with sign law and First Amendment matters, Andy has helped local governments with review and redraft of their sign codes.  He frequently writes and speaks about all of those topics as well.

Before joining Otten Johnson, Andy served as an appellate law clerk to the Hon. William W. Hood, III of the Colorado Supreme Court, and as an intern for the Hon. Monica Márquez, also of the Colorado Supreme Court. He began his career at a Denver-based public relations firm, where for several years he helped national and international clients manage their reputations before interested governments, competitors, and the public.

Outside the office, Andy enjoys skiing, mountain biking, and world travel with his wife and children, as well as maintaining a nearly decade-old Dungeons & Dragons game night tradition with friends.

Andy serves on the firm’s Marketing & Business Development Committee and is chair of the Recruiting Committee.

I support WalkDenver (opens in a new tab) because I believe Denver’s streets should foster health, happiness, and opportunity for all.

Experience

Representative experience includes:

• Won a complete victory in a challenge to land use approvals for a multi-million dollar hotel development in a mountain resort community
• Drafted the revised sign code for an East Coast community for a large Washington, D.C.-area local government
• Second-chaired pending appeal on a novel issue of First Amendment Petition Clause immunity in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit

Speaking & Publications

• Speaker, Regulatory Takings and Exaction Challenges, CLE International Land Use Law: How-To (December 2025)
• Speaker, Are Your Code Conditions Constitutional? Impact Fees, Dedications, and Other Exactions after Sheetz, 2025 Western Slope Planning Conference (October 2025)
• Moderator, How to Win an Office Property Tax Appeal, CREJ Office Summit (May 2025)
• Co-author, U.S. Supreme Court: Legislative Impact Fees Can Be Unconstitutional Exactions Too, Otten Johnson Alert (April 18, 2024)
• Co-author, Brian J. Connolly, Andrew L.W. Peters & David A. Brewster, Land Use Applications: Putting the Petition Clause in Context, Zoning and Planning Law Report (Vol. 42, Issue 8, Sep. 2019)
• Co-presenter, Public Places, Private Messages: How the First Amendment Shapes Regulations on Signs, Advertising, and Artwork, Rocky Mountain Land Use Institute (2019)

Awards & Involvement

• Best Lawyers in America:  Ones to Watch – Land Use and Zoning Law (2022-2026)
• WalkDenver, Board of Directors
• Certificate of Merit for excellence in First Amendment law, University of Michigan Law School (2016)
• PR Council: PR Champion (2013)

Jurisdiction

• State of Colorado
• U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado
• ​U.S. Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals

Education

• J.D., University of Michigan, cum laude (2016); Order of the Coif; Managing Notes Editor, Michigan Journal of Law Reform
• B.A., Public Policy, The College of William & Mary, magna cum laude (2009); Phi Beta Kappa

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