Divorce and custody counsel for Highlands Ranch.

What a Highlands Ranch divorce is usually about.

Two incomes, two 401(k)s, RSUs or options from one employer, a house bought in 2012 that is worth twice what was paid, a 529 plan for each child, and a car loan: the Highlands Ranch file is less about tracing what came from where than about dividing what both spouses built, fairly and without a tax mistake. Colorado divides marital property equitably, and the increase in value of a retirement account or a house during the marriage is marital even when the account was opened long before. Retirement money is divided with a qualified domestic relations order, drafted correctly, or the tax bill lands on the wrong spouse; unvested compensation is divided by a formula that depends on when it was granted and why. I have written about both on Executive Compensation.

Maintenance is the other question. When one spouse out-earns the other by a wide margin, Colorado’s advisory maintenance guideline gives a starting point that is neither a floor nor a ceiling, and the argument is about income: bonus, stock, a side business, the spouse who stepped back for the children and what he or she can earn now. The first weeks decide the shape of the next year. More on Spousal Maintenance and Temporary Orders.

Douglas County District Court, Castle Rock.

Highlands Ranch is unincorporated Douglas County, so a case filed here goes to the 23rd Judicial District at the Douglas County Courthouse in Castle Rock — about twenty minutes down I-25 or Santa Fe from Highlands Ranch and thirty from my office in Greenwood Village. The district is new and still growing: on January 14, 2025 Douglas, Elbert, and Lincoln Counties left the 18th District and became the 23rd, the legislature added a district judgeship that July and a county-court seat in July 2026. The domestic docket is two judges and two magistrates, and a separate family court facilitator division runs the initial status conference, where the 42-day disclosure clock under C.R.C.P. 16.2 is set. 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. The detail, and every other metro courthouse, is on the Denver Metro Family Courts page.

Custody when both parents work and both want the schedule.

Highlands Ranch custody cases are rarely about who is the better parent. They are about two working parents, one set of schools, and a calendar that has to survive a 7:40 start, after-school sports, and a parent who travels for work. Colorado’s best-interests factors include the physical proximity of the parents’ homes and each parent’s past pattern of involvement, and I build parenting plans around both, in detail, because the plan that is vague about Sunday night is the plan that ends up back in court. More on Parenting-Time Schedules and Parental Responsibilities.

Related: Executive Compensation  ·  Spousal Maintenance  ·  Real Estate Division  ·  Child Support  ·  Parental Responsibilities
Nearby: Lone Tree  ·  Castle Pines  ·  Parker  ·  Castle Rock  ·  Denver Metro Family Courts