Family Law

San Francisco Bay Area Family Law Attorney in Pleasanton

At my firm in the Bay Area including the Tri-Valley cities of : Pleasanton, Livermore, Dublin, & San Ramon, California, I represent and counsel clients in their family law legal matters such as: Divorce, domestic violence, child custody, visitation, support, as well as the modification of such issues after their divorce. Also, I counsel people on family law issues before they become married. This often involves reaching a prenuptial agreement.

Divorce

I help clients with all the important decisions that come with beginning and ending a relationship. These include how to divide assets and liabilities, support obligations, as well as how the physical and legal custody of their minor children should be structured to be in the child’s best interest.

When clients are facing decisions related to ending a relationship, tensions and emotions can run high. I offer legal services designed to help my clients control those emotions and not having those emotions control them. Thus, resolving and settling their family law matter without harming their futures and the futures of their children.

Sometimes, couples reach agreements on major decisions regarding dividing property, liabilities, financial support, and parenting plans before contacting attorneys to help them with their divorce. Unfortunately, however, that is more the exception than the rule.

When litigation is necessary, I zealously advocate for clients and and their rights, as I’ve been doing for my clients since 1984. Issues I have extensive experiencing in litigating include:

• Child Custody and Visitation including: “Move Away” matters, Allegations of Sexual and other Child Abuses, Custody Evaluations, Interstate and International Custody/Visitation issues.
• Dividing Property and Debts including: Complex High Value marital estates having Businesses or having Accounting Issues with Complex Tracing.
• Spousal Support and Child Support including: Determination of Income, Post-Judgment Modifications and Collections.
• Couples/Partnership Issues including: when the above issues apply to relationships of Putative Marriages, Common Law marriages of other states, and Living Together Relationships.

Domestic Violence

When domestic violence allegations are raised, the legal impact is very serious.

For example:

• It impacts which spouse may remain living in the family home.
• It impacts financial issues such as the amount of spousal support.
• It impacts which parent will have custody of your children.
• It impacts immigration issues, such as the ability to remain in this country or to enter foreign countries.
• It impacts the ability to ever have firearms.
• It can impact a parties current and future employment and/or licensure.
• Last, but not least, it can impact a spouse criminally, whereby the spouse can suffer a criminal conviction resulting in imprisonment, termination of employment, and the loss of many civil rights

In my 40 years I have successfully represented parties in family law cases with domestic violence allegations while at the same time representing them when there is a criminal case based on those same allegations. Most attorneys whose practices involve domestic violence allegations either handle just the family law aspect or handle just the criminal aspect. Few of us have the experience and the skill necessary to handle both concurrently. The benefit to the client when we do is that the client need not retain two attorneys and the one attorney handling the case is thoroughly familiar with the factual and legal nuances of both cases and their legal effect upon each other.