Practice Area · Discretion
Privacy in a public system.
Colorado court files are presumptively public — and for a business owner, a physician, or anyone whose name means something locally, that fact should shape the case from day one. Privacy is engineered at the start, not requested at the end.
The Default Is Public
And the exceptions are earned.
Many filings and hearing records are public by default; some sensitive information is protected by rule or can be restricted by court order — but broad sealing is never automatic and should never be assumed. Courts can restrict access to particular documents when the legal standard is met, but categorical sealing is rare. The honest starting premise: anything filed may be read. The strategy follows from the premise — control what gets filed.
Engineering Discretion
The tools, used from day one.
The most powerful privacy tool is resolving the case outside the courtroom: private mediation and, where appropriate, arbitration move the substance of the dispute — the valuations, the accusations, the balance sheets — out of the public file entirely. Inside litigation, protective orders can confine sensitive financial discovery to the parties and their experts; and at settlement, careful drafting keeps the details out of the decree itself — the parties' full agreement referenced rather than recited, schedules held privately. Add conduct discipline — no filings written for an audience, no social-media commentary, confidentiality terms in the agreement itself — and a case can begin and end with remarkably little public residue. That is how I run these matters by default, not by request.
Common Questions
Asked by people who are careful for a living.
Can our divorce be completely sealed?
Complete sealing is rare and shouldn't be promised. What's realistically achievable is substantial discretion: private resolution of the substance, protected financial discovery, and a public file that says very little. That outcome is built by strategy, not by a single motion.
Will my business financials become public?
Not if the case is run correctly. Protective orders can restrict discovery to the parties and experts, and settlement drafting can keep valuations and schedules out of the filed record. This concern — legitimate — is one of the first things I structure around.
My spouse is threatening to 'go public.' What do I do?
Don't negotiate against a threat — structure against it. Courts have little patience for litigation conducted as publicity, confidentiality terms carry real teeth, and composure is leverage. This is a solvable problem, and solving it quietly is rather the point.
The rest of this chapter.
How a Colorado divorce actually moves: temporary orders, mediation and litigation, privacy, and what happens when an order has to be modified, enforced, or appealed.
- Divorce in Coloradohow the process actually works→
- Mediation & Litigationsettle from strength→
- Privacy & Discretionengineered from the first filingYou are here
- Emergency & Protection Ordersthe automatic injunction, and urgent relief→
- Modificationswhich door you knock on matters→
- Enforcement & Contemptorders are only as good as their enforcement→
- Appealswon at trial, by the record→
- Common Law Marriagewhether a marriage exists at all→
- Legal Separationsame process, different decree→
- Temporary Ordersthe first ninety days, governed→
- Attorney Fees & Costsfee-shifting and the level playing field→
- Protection Ordersthe shield, and the defense against it→
Engagement
If discretion matters to you, it should shape the case from the first filing.
A consultation is a scheduled working session — in person in Greenwood Village or by video — in which we go through your situation and I tell you what I would do. It is a paid meeting, not a free call and not a sales pitch; my assistant quotes the consultation fee when you schedule. There is no chatbot here: the contact form and the phone both reach my office, my assistant reviews every inquiry personally, and the meeting goes on my calendar. Please hold the confidential details until we have run a conflicts check.