Strategic Family Law Representation for Children, Custody & Support
When your children are involved, the stakes are different.
Custody and support decisions can shape where your children live, how they spend their time, and how both parents participate in their lives for years to come. What happens early in a case can matter, especially when temporary orders, parenting schedules, or financial support are being established.
We help parents protect what matters most with a strategy grounded in the facts, focused on their children, and built to hold up when challenged. When agreement is possible, we work toward solutions that create stability. When it isn’t, we are prepared to fight for our clients in court.
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Your children deserve financial stability. The numbers need to reflect reality.
California child support is calculated under statewide guidelines, but that does not mean every support case is simple. Income, parenting time, tax considerations, health insurance, childcare expenses, and other factors can affect the calculation.
For high-earning parents, business owners, executives, or families with complex compensation, determining the income available for support may require much more than looking at a paycheck. Bonuses, commissions, business income, investments, equity compensation, and fluctuating earnings can complicate the financial picture.
Whether you are seeking support or being asked to pay it, we focus on making sure the numbers presented actually reflect the facts. When income is disputed or financial information is incomplete, we know how to dig deeper, challenge unsupported assumptions, and build a position that can withstand scrutiny.
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Custody is about more than a schedule. It is about your ability to remain present in your child’s life.
Child custody determines how parents share important decisions and parenting responsibilities. When parents cannot agree, those deeply personal decisions may ultimately be placed in the hands of a judge.
That makes how your case is presented critically important. It is not enough to tell the court what you want. You need to show why the custody arrangement you are asking for serves your child’s best interests, and give the court the facts and evidence to support it.
When custody becomes contested, allegations and emotion can quickly overwhelm the facts. Our job is to cut through the noise, build the evidence, and make sure the court understands what is really happening.
We help clients develop custody positions that are thoughtful, practical, and focused on their children’s best interests. We look at the realities of each family, including existing parenting patterns, school and activity schedules, each parent’s availability, communication and co-parenting dynamics, and any circumstances affecting a child’s safety or stability.
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A parenting plan has to account for much more than which parent gets which days. School schedules, holidays, vacations, extracurricular activities, transportation, exchanges, work demands, travel, and your children’s changing needs can all become part of the equation.
California courts can make detailed parenting-time orders addressing schedules, exchanges, and other practical arrangements. That detail matters. What seems like a minor issue today can become a recurring source of conflict when expectations are unclear or parents interpret an agreement differently later.
A vague agreement may feel easier now, but it can create problems for years to come.
We help parents think through the details before they become disputes and develop clear, workable parenting arrangements that reflect the realities of their family and protect meaningful relationships with their children. When the other parent interferes with parenting time, refuses to follow an existing order, or pushes for an arrangement that does not serve the child’s needs, we build the evidence, advocate for our client’s rights, and are prepared to take the issue to court when necessary.
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Life changes. Sometimes your support order needs to change with it.
A support order that made sense years ago may no longer reflect your family's circumstances.
A significant change in income, employment, parenting time, or other circumstances may create grounds to seek a different child support order. California Courts specifically identifies changes in a parent's income as one reason a parent may ask the court to modify child support.
But a change in circumstances does not automatically change an existing court order. Until the order is actually modified, the existing obligation may remain in place.
We help clients evaluate what has changed, determine how those changes affect the financial picture, and build the evidence necessary to seek or challenge a modification.
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Before custody or support can be decided, the law needs to know who the parents are.
Establishing legal parentage can determine far more than whose name appears on a birth certificate. Legal parents can seek custody and parenting-time orders and have financial responsibilities for their children.
When parentage is disputed, the issues can become complicated quickly. Genetic testing may be relevant, but DNA does not necessarily determine legal parentage on its own. California law recognizes circumstances in which someone may be a legal parent despite not being genetically related to the child.
We represent clients when parentage must be established, challenged, or resolved alongside disputes involving custody, parenting time, and child support. Because once legal parentage is established, the consequences can affect both the parent and child for years to come.
Strategic Counsel for Custody, Parenting & Support
Protecting your children starts with protecting the decisions that shape their lives.
Every case requires a different strategy. We help you determine which path best protects your interests and moves you toward resolution, whether that means negotiating from strength, working collaboratively, or fighting to win.
The Right Approach Depends on What’s at Stake.
We pursue resolution when it serves your interests. But when going to court is the right strategy, we know how to fight.
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Litigation is sometimes the most effective way to protect your interests, particularly in complex, high-asset, high-conflict, or heavily contested family law matters. When negotiation cannot produce an appropriate resolution, our attorneys are prepared to advocate for you through discovery, motions, hearings, and trial.
Founded by longtime litigator Ann Grant, our firm brings decades of litigation experience to family law. Before focusing exclusively on family law, Ann was a partner in complex business litigation and handled sophisticated commercial disputes, antitrust matters, white-collar criminal defense cases, and patent litigation.
That experience shapes how we approach family law today: prepare thoroughly, understand the leverage, anticipate the opposition, and build every case with the courtroom in mind.
When both parties are willing to work toward resolution, collaboration can provide a strategic path forward without the courtroom.
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Not every case needs a courtroom to achieve a strong outcome.
For clients who want to resolve their divorce outside of court, collaborative divorce provides a structured process in which each spouse is represented by their own collaboratively trained attorney.
Financial professionals, mental health professionals, and other specialists may also become part of the team, allowing complex financial, parenting, and family issues to be addressed with the appropriate expertise.
Our role remains the same: protect your interests, provide clear strategic counsel, and help you make informed decisions about your future. When the circumstances are appropriate, collaboration can provide a more private, efficient, and controlled path to resolution.
When compromise is possible, mediation can offer a more efficient path to resolution while keeping you in control of the outcome.
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Resolve what you can. Protect yourself while you do it.
Mediation gives spouses an opportunity to resolve disputes outside of court with the assistance of a neutral mediator. Because the mediator does not represent either spouse, understanding your individual rights, risks, and options remains essential.
Our attorneys can help clients prepare for mediation, develop a negotiation strategy, evaluate proposed agreements, and understand the potential consequences of settlement terms before important decisions are made.
For the right matter, mediation can provide greater control over the process while reducing the time and expense associated with litigation. When meaningful power imbalances, abuse, hidden assets, or an unwillingness to negotiate in good faith are present, other approaches may be more appropriate.
Your Children Aren’t Leverage. Your Relationship With Them Isn’t Negotiable.
Custody disputes can become emotional, contentious, and deeply personal. We keep the focus where it belongs: on the facts, your children’s well-being, and your ability to remain a meaningful part of their lives.
The decisions made today can become the framework your family lives with for years. You need attorneys who understand when compromise serves your children and when protecting your relationship with them means standing your ground.
We prepare carefully, advocate strategically, and fight when the circumstances demand it.
Frequently Asked Questions About Children, Custody & Support
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Custody and parenting-time disputes can escalate quickly, particularly when there is no clear agreement or court order already in place. What matters legally will depend on the existing custody arrangement, prior orders, the circumstances of the family, and any concerns involving a child’s safety or well-being.
When access to your children is being threatened or restricted, the way you respond can matter. We help clients understand the legal landscape, document what is happening, and develop a strategy focused on protecting both their children and their role as a parent.
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In a contested custody case, everyday interactions can take on greater significance. Communications between parents, parenting patterns, exchanges, school involvement, allegations about conduct, and other details may eventually become part of how each parent presents their position.
That is why strategy should begin before you walk into a courtroom. We help clients separate emotional conflict from what actually matters to the case, identify the facts and evidence that deserve attention, and prepare for the possibility of litigation from the beginning.
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California courts make custody decisions based on the child’s best interests, but applying that standard to an individual family can involve many facts and circumstances.
The important question is not simply what do I want the custody arrangement to be? It is how do the facts of my family support the arrangement I am asking for? We help clients build that story clearly, strategically, and with evidence to support it.
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Child support can become considerably more complicated when a family’s finances involve businesses, bonuses, commissions, investments, equity compensation, fluctuating earnings, or other income beyond a straightforward paycheck.
The calculation is only as useful as the financial information behind it. In complex financial cases, we look closely at how income is being characterized and whether the numbers being presented accurately reflect the financial picture before developing a strategy around support.
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When a parent repeatedly disregards an existing order, the problem is no longer simply a disagreement between co-parents. The history of what has occurred, the language of the existing order, the seriousness and frequency of the conduct, and its effect on the children can all become important.
We help clients determine which problems require legal intervention, build the record necessary to support their position, and take the issue back to court when circumstances warrant it.
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Family circumstances change. Children get older, schedules evolve, parents' financial circumstances change, and arrangements that once worked may no longer make sense. California law provides mechanisms for requesting modifications to certain existing family court orders, but whether a change is appropriate depends on the particular order and circumstances.
We help clients evaluate what has changed, what matters legally, and whether pursuing a modification is the right strategy for their situation.
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Relocation can turn an otherwise workable custody arrangement into a significant dispute. Distance can affect school, transportation, parenting time, activities, and each parent’s ability to maintain a meaningful relationship with the children.
These cases can be highly fact-specific, particularly when custody orders are already in place. We help clients understand what is at stake, develop a position grounded in the realities of their family, and prepare to advocate for that position in court when necessary.
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Parentage can affect custody, parenting time, child support, and other parental rights and responsibilities. California parentage law can also involve circumstances in which biological and legal parentage are not as straightforward as someone might assume.
When the question of who is legally recognized as a parent is contested, the consequences can be significant and long-lasting. We help clients understand what is actually at issue and build a strategy around what comes next.