Myra Chack Fleischer

Fleischer & Ravreby -- Carlsbad

At the five-lawyer family law firm Fleischer founded 21 years ago, she takes on all the cases with complex financial and business issues.

That's because a decade before going to law school, she was an accountant in Philadelphia. She worked in public accounting and private accounting, she said, but she quit to move to California with her husband and attend law school.

Given that background, Fleischer intended to go into business law, but she quickly gravitated to family practice instead. Family law demanded financial expertise, and "I liked dealing with people," she said.

These days, she handles many very high asset cases involving complex financial issues, such as evaluating a thriving business or tracing separate property.

For one matter like that, she had to defend a 22-year-old prenuptial agreement.

"It was an interesting case because my client had kept all the documents all the 20-plus years of the marriage," Fleischer said. "He had kept his separate property separate.... My expert could trace it all on through to the present time because he kept meticulous records."

Although she seeks to settle her cases, she does litigate. She's even had jury trials in some palimony cases, which are civil litigation. "I've handled a number of those in my career," she said. "I had one a few years ago that was very successful, with a sevenfigure award after a threeto four-week jury trial."

"I have another one coming up in August. Hopefully, it'll settle, but we'll see," Fleischer said.

She represented a father in a difficult move-away case a few years ago that resulted in an unpublished appellate opinion. Her client' wife wanted to move to Israel along with the couple's young son. The appellate court upheld the trial court's ruling, granting the mother's request, but with certain conditions.

"That was a tough one because we proved what we needed to prove in court, but the judge felt it was in the child's best interest to move 7,000 to 8,000 miles away from here," she said. The father did end up with substantial visitation rights. "It just involved traveling a lot."

Family law cases are emotionally challenging for the parties. But what Fleischer appreciates about handling them is the relationships she forms with the clients and then watching those clients eventually get better.

"I like seeing how their lives are transformed," she said. "They're in such a bad place when they start." But as the litigation resolves, "you can see them transform from the unhappy person in the marriage to the person who's going to see the other side of this."

- Don Debenedictis