Divorce and custody counsel for Castle Rock.

What a Castle Rock divorce is usually about.

Castle Rock has grown from a small town into a place where a family’s largest assets are a home in the Meadows or on acreage south of town, a company or a practice, and the retirement accounts of two long careers. Colorado divides marital property equitably, not necessarily equally, and the increase in value of a house or a 401(k) during the marriage is marital even when the account was opened long before. Dividing retirement money takes a qualified domestic relations order drafted correctly, or the tax bill lands on the wrong spouse. Dividing a business takes a valuation that a judge in this district will accept, which is a narrower category than the internet suggests.

The other constant is timing. Castle Rock couples often come to me with one spouse already planning to move — back to family, closer to a new job, out of state — and Colorado’s automatic injunction, which takes effect on service, limits what either spouse can do with property and the children while the case is pending. The first weeks decide the shape of the next year. I have written about them on Temporary Orders and about the money on Separate Property & Tracing.

Douglas County District Court, in town.

Castle Rock is the seat of Douglas County, and the 23rd Judicial District sits at the Douglas County Courthouse at 4000 Justice Way, on the east side of town. The district is new: on January 14, 2025 Douglas, Elbert, and Lincoln Counties left the 18th District and became the 23rd, and the legislature has already added a district judgeship and a county-court seat to keep up with the county’s growth. The domestic docket is two judges and two magistrates out of a bench of nine and six, with a separate family court facilitator division that runs the initial status conference. In my experience the magistrates handle temporary orders, mediation is ordered before nearly every contested hearing, and a contested permanent-orders hearing goes to a district judge unless both sides agree otherwise; since January 2026, a party who wants a magistrate’s ruling reviewed has 28 days to ask. The detail, and every other metro courthouse, is on the Denver Metro Family Courts page.

Custody across a county that is thirty miles wide.

Douglas County is large, and a parenting plan that works when both parents live in Castle Rock stops working when one moves to Highlands Ranch or Parker and the school day begins at 7:40. Colorado’s best-interests factors include the physical proximity of the parents’ homes, and the practical questions — who drives, which school, how the exchange happens on a Sunday night — are where these cases are won or lost. I draft plans for the family in front of me, not from a template, and I prepare every custody case as if it will be heard. More on Parenting-Time Schedules and Parental Responsibilities.

Related: Business Owner Divorce  ·  Real Estate Division  ·  Separate Property & Tracing  ·  Temporary Orders  ·  Parental Responsibilities
Nearby: Castle Pines  ·  Parker  ·  Highlands Ranch  ·  Lone Tree  ·  Denver Metro Family Courts