FRANCES C. BASSETT – Partner
Louisville, CO 80027
phone: 303.815.1720
fax: 303.673.9155
email: email me
Ms. Bassett joined the firm as a partner in 2008.
TRIBAL AFFILIATION: Ms. Bassett is a member of the Cherokee Nation.
PRACTICE AREAS: Natural resources, water and environmental law, commercial transactions, civil litigation and appellate advocacy.
ADMISSIONS: New Mexico and Colorado; U.S. Courts of Appeal for the Tenth Circuit and the District of Columbia; U.S. District Courts in New Mexico and Colorado.
EDUCATION: University of New Mexico (J.D., 1980); Board of Editors, Natural Resources Journal (1978-1980); University of New Mexico (B.A. 1974).
LEGAL EXPERIENCE: Assistant Attorney General, New Mexico Attorney General’s Office, Division of Water, Environment and Utilities (2003-08), Division of Special Prosecutions (1987-88); New Mexico Interstate Stream Commission (2002-2003); private practice in New Mexico (1995-2002); Staff Attorney, Colorado Court of Appeals (1988-1995); Staff Attorney, New Mexico Court of Appeals (1985-1987); Atlantic Richfield Company (1980-1985); law clerk at the Field Solicitor’s Office, Department of Interior, Window Rock, Arizona (1979).
LEGAL AUTHORSHIP: “Constitutional Limitations on State Severance Taxes”, 20 Natural Resources Journal 887 (1980); “The State and Federal Quandary Over Billboard Controls”, 19 Natural Resources Journal 711 (1979).
REPRESENTATIVE CASES: Ms. Bassett has been involved in general civil and commercial cases, as well as complex environmental and endangered species litigation under federal law. Rio Grande Silvery Minnow v. Keys, 469 F. Supp.2d 1003 (D.N.M. 2005); New Mexico ex rel. Richardson v. Bureau of Land Management, 459 F. Supp.2d 1102 (D.N.M. 2006); U.S. v. Sackett, 114 F.3d 1050 (10th Cir. 1997); Chappell v. Cosgrove, 916 P.2d 836 (N.M. 1996); Cafeteria Operators, L.P. v. Coronado-Santa Fe Associates, L.P., 952 P.2d 435 (N.M. App. 1997); Las Campanas Ltd. Partnership v. Pribble, 943 P.2d 554 (N.M. App. 1997).
ASSOCIATIONS: New Mexico and Colorado State Bar Associations; the New Mexico Indian Bar Association; and the Cherokee SouthWest Township, a satellite community of the Cherokee Nation.
Ms. Bassett is experienced in transactional work, litigation and appellate advocacy. She was appointed by the New Mexico Supreme Court to the court’s Appellate Rules Committee from 2001-06, and was Chair of the Appellate Practice Section of the N.M. Bar Association in 2004.
Ms. Bassett also has broad experience in water, natural resources and environmental law. At the New Mexico Attorney General’s Office Ms. Bassett represented the State of New Mexico at oral argument before the Tenth Circuit in Rio Grande Silvery Minnow v. Keys, 469 F. Supp.2d 1003 (D.N.M. 2005) (decision pending), a case under the Endangered Species Act.
Ms. Bassett also monitored negotiations and drafted the recommendation memoranda for the State’s settlement of Indian water rights claims in three separate adjudications, the Navajo Nation Settlement in New Mexico v. United States (N.M. State District Court, San Juan County, N.M.); the Taos Pueblo Settlement in New Mexico v. Abeyta (U.S. District Court), and a settlement of claims for the Pueblos of Nambe, Pojoaque, Tesuque and San Ildefonso in New Mexico v. Aamodt (U.S. District Court).
At the New Mexico Interstate Stream Commission, Ms. Bassett worked with technical staff in developing and implementing the State’s water rights acquisition program in the Pecos River Basin, in which State of New Mexico purchased and fallowed 18,000 acres of farmland and appurtenant water rights to comply with the amended decree and injunction entered by the U.S. Supreme Court in Texas v. New Mexico, 485 U.S. 388 (1988).
