Overview

Family law is complex and can be a maze of intricate details. Place your trust in us, we can guide you to the finish.

Our Family Law attorneys combine personal sensitivity with specialized practical advice to provide effective, caring resolution to our clients' problems. Our diversity in perspective and experience enables us to suggest creative solutions to disputes in this area, from the simplest to the most complex. We are devoted to keeping simple cases simple, and bringing innovative solutions and techniques to complex and unusual cases.

Our client’s interests are paramount; we maintain their privacy and confidences. We are sensitive to the pain associated with divorce. Client concerns are not minimized, and we strive to achieve the client’s overall goals with the utmost discretion. Because of our reputation, our clients include prominent figures or their spouses—leaders in the business world and professions, celebrities, and professional athletes. In most cases we are able to keep their problems from public view while quietly resolving their cases.

Our Family Law attorneys' primary goal is reaching a reasonable settlement without going to trial. But when a trial is necessary to resolve client problems, our Family Law clients benefit from having aggressive, effective trial attorneys supporting them in the courtroom.

Family law disputes are increasingly being resolved through alternative dispute resolution techniques such as mediation and early neutral evaluations. Our Family Law attorneys regularly assist parties using these alternative techniques to negotiate favorable settlements without going to trial.

Few other law firms have our breadth and depth of experience in family law problems. Our attorneys in this area are thorough economic and financial planners, well-seasoned negotiators and accomplished litigators. Our most senior Family Law attorney has been selected by his peers to list in the BEST LAWYERS IN AMERICA. He also served as an adjunct professor of Family Law at the University of Minnesota Law School, where he taught a seminar in negotiating complex matrimonial settlements. Among the most sophisticated in the field, our Family Law lawyers are supported by excellent paralegals and staff members.

Clients also benefit from our Family Law attorneys' ability to use the wider resources of the firm to resolve their problems. The group draws on the knowledge and experience of attorneys in the firm's Business & Tax Law, Estates & Trusts, Real Estate, Compensation Planning and Employee Benefits, Corporate, and Bankruptcy groups.

Family Law Services

• Divorce
• Annulment and Legal Separation
• Spousal Maintenance
• Business and Property Valuation and Division
• Child Support
• Child Custody (Including Interstate and International)
• Visitation / Parenting Time
• Tax & Financial Planning
• Negotiation, Settlement & Trial of Disputes
• Post-Dissolution Matters
• Review and Appeal
• Alternative Dispute Resolutions: Practical advice to individuals seeking to mediate or utilize alternatives to the court system
• Parental Child Abduction (Kidnapping, including Interstate and International cases under the Hague Convention)
• Domestic Abuse Proceedings
• Pre-Marital and Post-Marital Agreements
• Change of Name
• Paternity
• Adoption
• International Matrimonial Issues 

Representative Transactions

These representative cases are provided to give you an example of Fredrikson & Byron's approach to family law legal challenges.

Lawyers from Fredrikson & Byron represented a Mexican National whose wife had wrongfully removed their 18 month old daughter from Mexico and fled to Minnesota.  We obtained an Order giving the Mexican National temporary physical custody of the child pending a trial in Minnesota.  The Court ordered the return of the child to Mexico pursuant to the Hague Convention.

A Fredrikson & Byron Family Law client began a dissolution proceeding in a metropolitan county. Shortly after the proceeding began, our client's spouse sought to conceal and encumber various assets comprising a large portion of the marital estate. The spouse even went so far as to secure a large vehicle, back it up to the parties' homestead when no one was home and remove virtually all of the furniture and household goods, including the food from the family's refrigerator.

Lawyers from Fredrikson & Byron went to court and successfully obtained an Order directing the immediate return of all the property. The court admonished the spouse and awarded Fredrikson & Byron's client a significant portion of attorney fees.

A business executive of a well known private company retained Fredrikson & Byron for a marriage dissolution. Shortly after we were retained, the executive suffered a near-fatal heart attack which disabled him and forced him to retire.

Fredrikson & Byron's receptiveness, experience in financial planning, evaluation of retirement benefits and creative problem solving all contributed to the favorable conclusion of what was a difficult and frightening situation.

Throughout our client's illness and recovery, his Fredrikson & Byron lawyers worked to negotiate a favorable settlement, protecting his disability benefits, and assuring his financial future, as well as the financial future of his children. All of this was accomplished while maintaining sensitivity to our client's delicate physical and emotional condition.

Fredrikson & Byron was retained by an owner of a large manufacturing business. Our client's spouse sought to dissolve the marriage and to secure a share of the owner's corporate stock.

Fredrikson & Byron's Family Law lawyers successfully resisted our client's spouse's attempt to take over the corporation's stock. Because of our aggressive efforts, we were able to negotiate a settlement, preserve the business and arrive at an amicable resolution of the dispute.

Fredrikson & Byron Family Law attorneys represented a wealthy, elderly widow, who had remarried and was swindled by a much younger man. Our client had met the man after she sought companionship through a newspaper single's ad. After convincing our client to marry him, the man convinced her to transfer to him one-half of her house as well as several hundred thousand dollars of her life savings. He then gave all the cash she had given him to his child from a previous marriage in order to remove it from the marital estate. Shortly thereafter, the husband filed for divorce.

In the divorce, the husband requested our client give him additional cash for his one-half share of the house, as well as pay him spousal maintenance for the rest of his life. Given that our client was in her early 80's, she did not want to spend years litigating the matter in court. However, she also did not want her husband to take her for any more of her life savings. We ultimately settled the case out of court. Our client was awarded 100% of her home and did not have to pay her husband one additional cent.

May We Help You?

We encourage you to call one of our Family Law attorneys if you find yourself facing a situation which may be too complicated to resolve by yourself. You and the attorney you choose will thoroughly review the problems and possible solutions. You will also jointly decide on which events will occur and you will be kept informed of all critical actions. Your attorney will provide careful guidance every step of the way.

Bios

Primary Attorneys

Judy S. Engel
Raymond M. Lazar
Kristy A.K. Rodd, Chair

Supporting Attorneys

Nicole M. Moen
Cameron R. Seybolt

Other Professionals

Deborah K. Halvorson
Lisa M. Lindenfelser
Barbara J. MacInnis