Boulder divorce counsel for equity, trusts and the people who built them.

Who I am, and why Boulder clients hire me.

I have practiced family law for more than thirty years and tried more than seventy cases to a judge. I spent the first part of my career as a founding partner of a nine-attorney divorce litigation firm in Orange County, California, representing founders, executives, physicians and a few very well-known people, and I sat as a judge pro tem in the Los Angeles Superior Court. I then spent a decade as a general counsel, closing transactions and litigating the partnership, business and real estate disputes that came with them, with a Georgetown LL.M. in taxation along the way. I hold an AV Preeminent rating from my peers. In Colorado I practice from Greenwood Village and appear in the Denver metro courts, Boulder County among them.

What that background means for a Boulder case is specific. I read a cap table, a grant agreement, an operating agreement and a trust instrument the way the people who drafted them do, because I have drafted and litigated all four. I tax-effect every significant asset before we talk about who keeps what, because a dollar of unvested RSUs, a dollar in a 401(a) account and a dollar of Mapleton Hill equity are three different after-tax numbers. And I do the work myself. You will not be handed to an associate after the first meeting; the lawyer who sits across from you at the consultation is the lawyer who cross-examines the valuation expert at the Justice Center.

A word about geography, since several firms advertising in Boulder run their Boulder pages from an executive suite. My office is in Greenwood Village, about fifty minutes down US-36 and I-25. Most Boulder clients meet me by video, some come to the office, and when it is useful I come to Boulder. Every hearing is at 1777 6th Street, and I am there for all of them. Read more about me on the About page.

The clients I am built for.

• A founder, early employee or executive with options, RSUs or private shares that have not been sold
• A tenured professor, research scientist or federal-lab employee with a CU 401(a), PERA, FERS or TIAA retirement account
• A spouse who is the beneficiary of a family trust, or who is married to one
• An owner of a company, a medical or dental practice, or an investment partnership, or the spouse who did not run it
• A parent whose co-parent may be recruited to another state before the children are grown
• Anyone whose spouse has already hired a large firm and who wants a senior trial lawyer across the table from it

What a Boulder divorce is usually about.

Equity. Boulder raised about $1.7 billion of venture money across 141 deals in 2024, CU Boulder ranks among the top five universities in the country for spinning out startups, and Google alone employs more than 1,500 people at Pearl and 30th. The result is that a large share of Boulder marital estates sit in stock options, restricted stock units and private company shares with no public price. Colorado’s rule comes from two Supreme Court cases, Miller (1996) and Balanson (2001): an option or grant is marital property to the extent it was earned by work done during the marriage, and it becomes “property” when the employee has an enforceable right to it, which is not the same as vested. So the fight is over the grant documents and the vesting schedule: which tranches were compensation for past service, which are consideration for future service, and how a court should value a share that cannot be sold. Then the tax: incentive options, non-qualified options and RSUs are taxed differently, an 83(b) election or a qualified small business stock position changes the after-tax value, and a 409A appraisal is not what a secondary buyer would pay. I argue those numbers rather than accepting the company’s. The mechanics are on Stock Options & RSUs and Executive Compensation.

The university and the labs. More than half of Colorado’s federally funded laboratories are in Boulder, and CU Boulder employs more than twelve thousand faculty and staff. Those careers come with retirement plans that each divide under their own rules. Most CU faculty and university staff are in the university’s 401(a) plan, while classified staff are in Colorado PERA; a PERA benefit is divided only with PERA’s own domestic relations order, signed by the court without changes and filed within tight deadlines around the decree. A NIST or NOAA scientist is a federal employee whose FERS or CSRS annuity is divided only by a court order acceptable for processing under federal regulations, sent to the Office of Personnel Management. NCAR and UCAR staff are typically in TIAA accounts that divide like any other defined-contribution plan. Get the order wrong and the division you negotiated is not the division that gets paid. More on QDROs, PERA and Pension Division.

Trust and inherited wealth. Boulder has an unusual amount of family money, and trusts are where the hardest arguments live. Under Colorado law a beneficiary’s interest in a purely discretionary trust is not property at all, only an “economic circumstance” the court weighs, while a remainder interest the beneficiary cannot be cut out of is property, separate at the start and marital to the extent it appreciated during the marriage. Which kind of trust you or your spouse has is a question of the instrument’s exact language, and it can move seven figures from one column to the other. Inheritances and gifts are separate property, but the increase in their value during the marriage is marital, and the burden of tracing falls on the spouse claiming them. Details on Trust Interests and Separate Property & Tracing.

The house. The median owner-occupied home in the City of Boulder is now worth more than a million dollars, which means that in half of Boulder divorces a house on Mapleton Hill, in Newlands, below Chautauqua or on Table Mesa is the largest single asset. Those houses were often bought with a down payment from one spouse’s family or from pre-marital stock, and under Colorado law that contribution can stay separate only if it can be traced through every refinance since. Whether one spouse keeps the house, how an equalization payment is funded when the rest of the estate is illiquid equity, and how a buyout is priced in a market that moved twenty percent in a year are the practical questions. See The House, the Buyout and the Equalization Payment.

Businesses and practices. A Pearl Street company, a Table Mesa dental practice, a consulting LLC with three employees: Colorado treats a business built or grown during the marriage as marital, the operator usually keeps it, and the dispute is the valuation, the distinction between personal and enterprise goodwill, and making sure the same dollars do not fund both the valuation and a maintenance award. Covered on Business Owner Divorce, Business Valuation and Professional Practices; the other side of the table is Married to the Business Owner.

How a case moves through the 20th Judicial District.

Boulder County is its own judicial district, the 20th, and every dissolution case in the county is filed and heard at the Boulder County Justice Center at 1777 6th Street, where 6th meets Canyon, a few blocks west of Pearl Street. The Longmont courthouse on Kimbark Street handles county-court matters; divorce and custody are heard in Boulder. Broomfield is a separate city and county with its own combined court. The procedure that follows is Colorado’s, under Rule 16.2, but Boulder runs it in a particular way, and knowing the rhythm is most of the advantage.

The first six weeks. Once the petition is filed the court sets an initial status conference within 42 days. In Boulder the conference is run by the court’s Family Court Facilitator rather than a judge in most cases, and it is where the deadlines and the hearing dates get fixed. Within 42 days of service each spouse must serve a sworn financial statement and a certificate of compliance listing the mandatory disclosures: tax returns, pay records, statements for every account, business and trust documents, grant agreements. If there are children, a certificate of completion of a co-parenting class must be filed within 63 days. A Boulder case is won or lost in this window more often than at the hearing: the disclosures are evidence, and a spouse who has not gathered the K-1s, the cap table and the trust instrument before the conference is already behind.

Mediation before any contested hearing. The court requires mediation before the permanent orders hearing, and a certificate of mediation must be on file at least 21 days before the hearing week. The court’s Office of Dispute Resolution charges $75 per party per hour; private mediators, many of them retired judges, cost more and are often worth it in a complex estate. Temporary orders, if they are needed, are set at the status conference and are usually heard first.

The hearing week. Boulder sets permanent orders on a hearing-week system and, in the court’s own words, most hearings are three hours long, which leaves each side about ninety minutes to present its case. Roughly three weeks before the hearing week there is a pretrial conference with the facilitator, and seven days before the hearing the pretrial statement, an updated sworn financial statement and the proposed separation agreement and parenting plan are due. Ninety minutes is not long to prove the value of a company, the character of a trust and the right parenting schedule. It rewards the side that has stipulated to everything that is not actually in dispute, has its expert reports in the exhibit binder, and knows exactly which three questions decide the case. That is how I prepare every Boulder hearing.

Children and evaluators. When parenting is contested the court can appoint a Child and Family Investigator, whose fee is capped by Chief Justice Directive at $3,250 for the investigation plus $500 for testimony absent extraordinary circumstances, or order a Parental Responsibilities Evaluation by a licensed mental health professional, which is far more expensive and far more thorough. Choosing between them, and choosing the evaluator, is a strategic decision made early. See the CFI and PRE guide.

Judges and magistrates. The district’s domestic relations dockets are assigned to district judges, and since the Colorado Rules for Magistrates were rewritten effective January 2, 2026, a contested permanent orders hearing on property, maintenance or parenting can be heard by a magistrate only with the parties’ consent, which is deemed given if no one objects within 14 days of the notice. Whether to consent is a decision, not a formality. The decree itself cannot enter until 91 days after the court acquires jurisdiction over the responding spouse, and one spouse must have been domiciled in Colorado for 91 days before filing.

Settle from strength. Try the case when it matters.

Boulder has a settlement culture and I respect it. Most Boulder couples want a private, fair result, collaborative and mediated divorce are common here, and the court orders mediation anyway. I have settled far more cases than I have tried. But I have never seen a strong settlement that was not backed by a credible trial threat, and in a complex estate the credible threat is a lawyer who has actually built the financial record, retained the right valuation expert, found the weak points in both sides’ positions, and is visibly ready to spend the ninety minutes well. That is what makes the other side’s number move. When it does not move, I try the case. How I decide which path a case is on is explained on Mediation & Litigation; if you and your spouse want a neutral rather than an advocate, see Mediation Services.

Two things I bring to that negotiation that most family lawyers do not: a tax LL.M., so every proposal is priced after tax and the cheapest asset to give up is the one we give up; and a decade as a general counsel, so an operating agreement’s transfer restrictions, a fund’s waterfall or a buy-sell clause read as familiar documents, not as exhibits to be sent to someone else. More on Divorce & Taxes and High-Asset Divorce.

Custody when one parent may be recruited away.

Boulder parents are unusually mobile: a postdoc ends, a startup is acquired by a company in another state, a lab reassigns, a tenure offer arrives from another university. Colorado’s relocation statute is strict. A parent who wants to move with the children after orders are in place has to prove that the move is in the children’s best interests under a long list of factors, not merely that a good job is waiting, and a parent who wants to move before orders enter faces a different, somewhat easier standard. I build Boulder parenting plans with that possibility in view, around each parent’s actual history of involvement, the children’s schools in the Boulder Valley district, and the physical proximity of the two homes, and I prepare every custody case as if it will be heard. Where a parent’s travel schedule or an equity-heavy income complicates child support, the inputs matter more than the formula. More on Relocation & Move-Away, Parental Responsibilities, Custody for Executives & Owners and Child Support.

Boulder, Niwot, Louisville and Superior.

I represent clients across the city and the county’s east side: Mapleton Hill, Whittier, University Hill, Chautauqua and Pine Brook Hills in 80302; Newlands, Wonderland Hill and north Boulder in 80304; Table Mesa, Devil’s Thumb and Shanahan Ridge in 80305; Niwot and Gunbarrel in 80503; and Louisville and Superior in 80027. All of them file at the Justice Center in the 20th Judicial District. Broomfield, which borders Superior, is a separate county with its own court, and I handle Broomfield cases as well. Prenuptial and postnuptial agreements for Boulder couples with equity, trust interests or a family business are on Prenuptial Agreements.

Related: High-Asset Divorce  ·  Stock Options & RSUs  ·  Trust Interests  ·  Separate Property & Tracing  ·  QDROs, PERA & Pensions  ·  Business Valuation  ·  Divorce & Taxes  ·  Financial Disclosures  ·  Relocation & Move-Away  ·  Calculators
Nearby: Broomfield  ·  Golden  ·  Evergreen  ·  Cherry Creek  ·  Denver Metro Family Courts