• Attorneys

  • Antony Noble

  • Tara Jorfald

  • Heidi Tripp

• Practice Areas

• Reported Cases

TARA JORFALD is a senior associate at The Noble Law Firm and focuses her practice on appeals, judicial reviews, and postconviction proceedings in juvenile delinquency and criminal cases.

Tara focuses her practice on complex cases in which she challenges serious felony convictions and lengthy prison sentences.  She also provides assistance to clients with applications for parole, pardons, and clemency by gathering extensive mitigating evidence and advocating for the release of her clients from prison.

Tara is a member of a litigation committee that actively advocates for sentencing reform for adolescent and young adult offenders.  She has been at the forefront of many important juvenile sentencing issues.  See People in Interest of B.D., 477 P.3d 143 (Colo. 2020) (at-risk victim statute, imposing greater penalties when a theft happens in presence of an at-risk victim, is a sentence enhancer rather than an element of offense); People in the Interest of J.C., 428 P.3d 617 (Colo. App. 2018) (a court may not sentence a juvenile to commitment with the Division of Youth Corrections for an indeterminate term); Estrada-Huerta v. People, 394 P.3d 1139 (Colo. 2017) (the categorical ban on sentences of life without parole for juveniles who were not convicted of homicide does not apply to an aggregate term-of-years sentence).

As an advocate for her clients, Tara has:

• Persuaded district courts to reduce the sentences for two different client’s serving virtual live sentences.
• Persuaded a district attorney and district court to reduce a sentence by 12-years for a juvenile serving thirty-two years, due to ineffective assistance of counsel.
• Persuaded the Colorado Court of Appeals to reverse summary denials of postconviction relief in attempted murder, direct file, and sexual assault cases.
• Persuaded a district court to reverse a conviction and dismiss a felony conviction in which the client was facing deportation because of the conviction.
• Persuaded a district court to reverse a sexual assault juvenile adjudication in judicial review proceedings.
• Persuaded a court to reduce a 35-year prison sentence to 25-years in a racketeering case.
• Persuaded a district court to reverse three counts of harassment based on a jury instruction error.
• Persuaded a district court to run a conviction for check fraud concurrently with a federal sentence.
• Persuaded a district court to reduce a sentence for sexual assault from 10 to 6 years.
• Filed an amicus brief in the Colorado Supreme Court in a case in which public indecency charges were not reinstated against the defendant after the appeal.
• Persuaded the Department of Corrections to reconsider an out-of-state inmate transfer due to safety concerns and return the person back to the state and allow the person to apply for an early release program.
• Persuaded the Department of Corrections to release a sick and elderly inmate, serving an indeterminate sentence, on special needs parole.
• Persuaded district courts to grant many petitions to discontinue sex offender registration.
• Persuaded the executive clemency board to recommend that the governor grant clemency in a homicide case.

It is difficult to obtain a successful outcome on appeal or in postconviction proceedings, and most cases are not successful.  Tara therefore provides her clients with an honest assessment of their cases before proceeding with litigation.  If they decide to proceed, Tara will give her full dedication to obtain results even in the most difficult cases.

Tara graduated in law from the University of Denver.  She received her BA in International Relations and Spanish from Concordia College, Moorhead, MN, and her MPhil in the Theory and Practice of Human Rights from the University of Oslo, Faculty of Law.

Tara has always been committed to social justice.

Before practicing law, Tara spent time working as a counselor at a Colorado residential treatment center for at-risk youth.  She also worked for the Norwegian Organisation for Asylum Seekers where she provided legal aid and assisted with asylum appeals.  She then worked for the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights where, among other things, she managed a development program to strengthen human rights and democracy across South Africa.

Tara is fluent in Spanish and Norwegian.

An Appellate Law Firm