My principal area of practice is family law.  I have experience representing clients on issues of child custody and visitation, child support, divorce, parentage, domestic violence, adoption, legal separation, and guardianship.

I serve clients in Santa Clara, Alameda, and San Mateo counties.  Occasionally, I have worked in San Francisco as well.

It is my opinion that most lawyers charge their clients excessively, and they make litigation excessively complicated and excessively expensive.  I very deliberately set my hourly rates low because I oppose this trend which I believe goes against lawyers’ duties to serve the public, and in particular to serve the poor and the oppressed, including victims of domestic violence.

I keep down my overhead costs by doing almost all the work myself instead of delegating it to staff.  I have no full-time staff and only hire assistants as needed for contract work.  With this approach, I have fewer clients, but I can provide high-quality services to my clients at a reasonable price.

I am well aware that people with family lawsuits, for the most part, are very unhappy about the entire situation that brings them to court, and can hardly afford the services of a lawyer.  Frequently, nobody “wins” in family court.  Still, if you have an issue that requires resolution in family court, the services of a family lawyer can be very important in helping you overcome the worst effects and move on with your life.

In many cases, divorces, legal separations, and parentage actions can be carried through from beginning to end without ever having a real hearing in court other than so-called “status conferences” at which no substantive decisions need be made.  Some cases may even be completed without a status conference.  Even in such cases, getting your documents right can be crucially important, and the assistance of an experienced family law attorney can be very valuable.

For many clients with low-conflict cases, full-scope representation by a lawyer in court may not be necessary, and it may be enough simply to have a lawyer help them prepare court documents that they can submit themselves.

A possibility for low-conflict cases which I encourage clients to consider is mediation.  If you believe that you can agree outside of court with your spouse/partner/other party on the issues in question, then please ask me about mediation services.  I have mediation training; have mediated many cases, and generally recommend mediation as an optimal means of resolving family law issues for all cases in which people are willing to make a reasonable effort to be reasonable with each other.

If you think you might have a family law issue, contact me today and ask about scheduling a consultation.  Please note that, in light of the high volume of potential client inquiries, I no longer offer free preliminary consultations.  I am currently asking a $250 fee for a one-hour preliminary consultation.  Before we get started with it, I will do a conflict check, verify that you have an issue of the sort that I work with (i.e. family law in the South Bay Area), and ask you to fill out an intake form.  I look forward to hearing from you.