Questions, answered the way I'd answer them in my office.

The legal minimum is 91 days from filing and service. Uncontested cases can land near it; contested cases with businesses or complex assets typically run many months longer, driven by valuation and disclosure. Details on the full sequence: Divorce in Colorado.

Probably not — most cases settle at or around mediation. But we prepare as though you will, because that preparation is precisely what makes settlement happen on good terms.

Often, yes — but not completely. Colorado court files are generally public, so privacy has to be planned from the beginning: private mediation where appropriate, careful use of financial exhibits, protective orders when justified, and settlement drafting that avoids filing unnecessary detail. The honest limits and the tools: Privacy & Discretion.

Less than people fear, more than zero. Filing starts the automatic injunction protecting assets and children, sets venue, and controls early tempo. If circumstances are volatile, the sequencing is worth a conversation before anyone acts.

Venue follows where you or your spouse lives, not where your lawyer’s office is. Arapahoe County — Greenwood Village, Cherry Hills Village, Centennial, most of Aurora — is the 18th Judicial District, and cases are heard at the Arapahoe County Justice Center in Centennial. Douglas County — Highlands Ranch, Lone Tree, Castle Pines, Parker, Castle Rock — became its own 23rd Judicial District in January 2025, with the courthouse in Castle Rock. Denver is the 2nd District, Jefferson the 1st in Golden, Boulder the 20th. I appear in all five, and each has its own habits on mediation and temporary orders. Addresses, phones, and what to expect at each: Denver Metro Family Courts.

Three clocks start. You have 21 days to file a Response — 35 if you were served outside Colorado. Within 42 days both spouses must exchange the mandatory financial disclosures under C.R.C.P. 16.2 — a sworn financial statement with the documents behind it — whether or not anyone asks. And the court sets an Initial Status Conference no later than 42 days after filing, where the schedule is set and I can ask for a temporary-orders hearing or the appointment of a Child and Family Investigator. My office calendars all three the day you retain me; missing the first can mean a default. The full sequence: Divorce in Colorado.

From the moment the petition is served, an automatic injunction binds both spouses (C.R.S. § 14-10-107): no transferring, hiding, or borrowing against marital property outside the ordinary course of business, no taking the children out of Colorado without written consent or a court order, no cancelling or changing health, home, auto, or life insurance without fourteen days’ notice and consent, and no harassing the other spouse. Nobody has to move out. If you own a business, “ordinary course” needs defining early — distributions, new debt, a partner buy-in, or a bonus structure changed mid-case will all be examined later, and I would rather we decide those on purpose than explain them at trial.

The court can enter temporary orders (C.R.S. § 14-10-108) for parenting time, child support, maintenance, who stays in the house, and who pays which bills while the case is pending. In the south-metro courts the request is usually raised at the Initial Status Conference, sent to mediation, and heard by a magistrate roughly two to four months after filing — often in a hearing limited to an hour or two, so the evidence has to be tight. Temporary orders are not supposed to decide the final result, but in a custody case the schedule your children live under for months becomes the status quo, which is why I push to get the first one right. More: Temporary Orders.

Probably both. In Arapahoe and Douglas County, magistrates typically run the Initial Status Conference and hear temporary orders and many post-decree motions; a contested permanent-orders hearing — the final property division and parenting plan — goes to a district judge unless both sides consent to the magistrate. A magistrate’s ruling is challenged by a petition for review to the district judge on a short deadline (28 days for cases filed in 2026 or later), not by a direct appeal. Knowing who will hear which issue shapes how I present the case.

In practice, yes. Judges in both districts routinely order mediation before any contested hearing — often before temporary orders and again before permanent orders — and Denver and Jefferson vary by division. Mediation through the court’s Office of Dispute Resolution runs $75 per party per hour with a two-hour deposit; private mediators, including retired judges, cost more and are worth it in a high-asset or high-conflict case. I prepare for mediation as if it were the trial, because a well-prepared session frequently is the end of the case. How I decide between the two: Mediation vs. Litigation.

No — Colorado divides marital property equitably: fairly under the circumstances, with real judicial discretion. Equal happens often; it is never automatic. Start here: Property Division.

Usually not — courts typically award the company to its operator and equalize value through offsets or a buyout; the outcome turns on valuation, liquidity, and the overall division. The fight is the number and the structure: Business Valuation.

Through advisory guidelines for qualifying cases — combined annual adjusted gross income up to $240,000 under the current statute — with the court weighing statutory factors even inside the range, and advocacy and evidence controlling above it, which is where most of my cases live. The actual math, with a worked example: Spousal Maintenance.

Only temporarily. Colorado imposes an affirmative duty of full financial disclosure in domestic-relations cases, and part of my job is making the other side's disclosure actually complete — then pressure-testing it. The other part is making sure you understand it: I walk you through the statements, the tax returns, and the business records, explain what each one means for your case, and lay out the steps we take next. Information asymmetry is a solvable problem; it's solved with process, not panic.

Then the disclosure rules become your leverage: Colorado law allows a court to revisit a property division for a material misstatement or omission of assets or liabilities, on a motion generally filed within five years of the decree. I have a strong financial background — decades on valuation, forensic accounting, and tracing, and years running businesses myself — and I use it: document requests and subpoenas, and depositions when they are needed. I know how to find hidden assets, and if they are worth pursuing, we will find them. Suspicion isn't proof — but it is a work plan. More: Hidden Assets.

The automatic injunction that takes effect at service already bars either spouse from transferring, hiding, or borrowing against marital property outside the ordinary course of business. When that is not enough, I can ask the court for orders beyond it — an accounting, a freeze on specific accounts, or a restraining order — and for money that has moved to be returned. The record is what wins these motions: statements, transfers, and dates, gathered quickly and quietly. And if money has already gone, the court can account for it when it divides the property. More: Emergency Orders and Hidden Assets.

No presumed schedule exists in Colorado. Courts build the allocation from your family's actual facts under the best-interests standard: Parental Responsibilities.

A Child and Family Investigator (C.R.S. § 14-10-116.5) is a court-appointed neutral — often a lawyer or a therapist — who interviews the parents, the children, and the people around them and files a written recommendation, usually within two to three months. The fee for a privately paid CFI is capped by the Colorado Supreme Court: $3,250 for the investigation and report, plus $500 for testimony, absent extraordinary circumstances. A Parental Responsibilities Evaluation (C.R.S. § 14-10-127) is done by a licensed mental-health professional, can include psychological testing, has no cap — five figures is normal — and takes three to six months. Judges follow these reports far more often than not, so the real work is preparing you for the process and, if the report is wrong, cross-examining the evaluator. I recommend a PRE only when substance use, mental health, or relocation is genuinely at issue. How to prepare, step by step: A Parent’s Guide to CFIs and PREs. See also Parental Responsibilities.

Colorado allows a motion to restrict parenting time (C.R.S. § 14-10-129(4)) when a child is in imminent physical or emotional danger. Once it is filed, the other parent’s time is limited to supervised contact and the court must hear the motion within 14 days. It is a powerful remedy with a consequence if misused — a motion the court finds substantially frivolous or vexatious means paying the other side’s fees — so I file it when the facts support it, not as leverage. More: Emergency Orders.

No — and protecting them from feeling they must is both good parenting and good strategy. A child's wishes are one factor, weighed by maturity; a child put in the middle is a wound the court notices.

Not unilaterally once a case or orders exist — relocation has its own demanding legal standard. If a move is even on the horizon, talk to me before plans harden: Parenting Time.

The guideline schedule now extends to $40,000 of combined monthly income under the 2026 amendments; above it, support becomes discretionary with a floor — and for owners, the real fight is what counts as income: Child Support.

Rates in line with senior trial counsel in Denver — I don't publish them, I don't play games with them, and we discuss the retainer plainly in the first conversation. What you're buying is senior judgment, direct access, and preparation most lawyers consider excessive. Whether the fight is over a business or over your children's week, that is what decides the outcome.

Because it is real legal advice, not a sales call: we go through your situation and I tell you what I would do. And once we have talked through your marriage in detail, I will not represent your spouse in it — a consultation takes me off the board for the other side. My assistant quotes the fee when you schedule, and the meeting goes on my calendar, not a call center's.

Yes. I keep the docket small enough to handle every matter personally, so the honest limit is my time, not the size of your case. If I can't give your matter the attention it needs when you call, I'll tell you, and where I can, point you to counsel I respect.

You're differently armed. Their model is leverage — layers of associates billing in parallel. Mine is one senior lawyer who knows every fact of your case personally, supported by exactly the experts the case needs. Thirty years in, I'll take that trade every time — and so should you.

Directly and carefully. Your client gets me — not an intake funnel — a prompt conflicts check, and candid feedback about fit. Your name travels with the referral, so I treat it accordingly. Most of my practice arrives exactly this way, and I return the trust by never overreaching on scope. And it flows both ways: every matter I handle generates work I refer out — the post-divorce estate-plan rewrite, forensic and personal tax engagements, settlement investment, refinancing — and I refer deliberately, to professionals whose work I've seen up close.