Divorce and custody counsel for Lone Tree.

Two careers, a practice, and a house on the ridge.

A physician’s buy-in to a group, an executive’s vesting schedule, a partner’s share of a firm: with Charles Schwab, Sky Ridge Medical Center and Kiewit among the city’s largest employers, in Lone Tree the question is usually not whether there is marital property but what it is worth, when it is measured, and how much of what looks like income has already been divided as property. Colorado law treats a professional practice as property with a value and the professional’s earnings as income — and getting that line right is the difference between a fair result and paying twice. I write about it on Professional Practices and Income Determination.

Maintenance in these households usually falls above the range where Colorado’s advisory formula applies, which means evidence rather than arithmetic: the marital standard of living, the earning capacity of a spouse who stepped back, and how the property division offsets need. See Spousal Maintenance.

Douglas County District Court, Castle Rock.

Lone Tree is in Douglas County, which on January 14, 2025 became the 23rd Judicial District — separate from Arapahoe County’s 18th, even though the Arapahoe courthouse is closer to most of Lone Tree than the Douglas one. Cases are heard at the Douglas County Courthouse at 4000 Justice Way in Castle Rock, about fifteen minutes south on I-25. The domestic docket is two judges and two magistrates out of a district bench of nine and six, and a separate family court facilitator division runs the initial status conference, which is where your disclosure deadlines are set. In my experience the magistrates handle temporary orders, mediation is ordered before contested hearings, and a contested permanent-orders hearing goes to a district judge unless both sides consent to the magistrate. Every metro courthouse, with addresses and hours: Denver Metro Family Courts.

Call schedules, travel, and a parenting plan that holds.

A surgeon on call, an executive who is in another city two weeks a month, a spouse who has carried the school pickups for a decade: Lone Tree custody cases are about designing a schedule that reflects how the family actually runs and then protecting it. Colorado weighs each parent’s past pattern of involvement and the proximity of the homes, and a temporary order that runs for months becomes the status quo. I build the first order as carefully as the last. More: Custody for Executives & Business Owners.

One lawyer, start to finish.

You work with me from the first call to the final order. Thirty years of trial practice, more than seventy bench trials, decades on the financial core of divorce — valuation, forensic accounting, income determination — and just as many years on contested parenting cases. The consultation is a paid working session; call my office and they will tell you the fee and get you on the calendar.

Related: Professional Practices  ·  Income Determination  ·  Spousal Maintenance  ·  Parenting Time  ·  Child Support
Nearby: Cherry Hills Village  ·  Greenwood Village  ·  Castle Pines  ·  Denver Metro Family Courts