Family Law

Family law is an emotionally-charged area that requires lawyers who are sensitive to the nature of domestic relations issues and their impact on all affected parties, especially children.

The Family Law team at Dickinson Wright is among the most experienced and respected. Most of the team's lawyers are certified family law specialists and together possess more than 100 years of combined experience. Practicing throughout the U.S., we have developed the largest domestic relations practice in the State of Arizona.

We help our clients with the full range of domestic relations issues, including: divorce, child custody and parenting time, pre-marital and postnuptial agreements, cohabitation agreements, spousal maintenance and child support, paternity and interstate and international family law matters. We are particularly experienced in resolving business and professional valuation disputes. Our objective is always to help our clients solve problems, not create or exacerbate them.

Whenever possible, we encourage out-of-court settlements. Our experience shows that most contested cases can be settled effectively in this way. When litigation is necessary, however, our clients benefit from our team’s extensive experience in state courts and in private mediation and arbitration as well as the resources of a full-service law firm.

In complex divorce cases, our clients can rest assured that our team has in-depth knowledge of the laws related to child custody and property issues as well as all related areas of law.  These include tax, pension and retirement funds, estate planning and probate, bankruptcy law, business and corporate matters and tort litigation. 

Among our areas of family law expertise are:

• Advising on and handling divorces,including issues regarding paternity, child support and spousal support (alimony).

• Representing a wide range of clients, including professionals, entertainers, sports figures and other high-profile or high net-worth individuals.

• Resolving international disputes under the Hague Convention disputes involving situations in which a parent has improperly taken a child to another jurisdiction and child custody relocation cases.

• Negotiating and enforcing prenuptial and postnuptial agreements involving complex business assets, inherited and gifted property, comingled assets and retirement accounts.

• Advising on the division of pensions, profit-sharing plans, employee stock option plans and other defined-benefit and deferred-compensation plans for both individuals and companies.

• Representing unmarried couples and same-sex couples in resolving issues concerning custody of children and the division of property.

• Acting as mediators or arbitrators.

• Negotiating and drafting cohabitation agreements to define the rights of parties residing together.

• In addition to handling appeals of a wide range of family law matters, certain of our lawyers are certified by the court to act as parenting coordinators in custody matters.