Brandon C. Rose

SAN JOSE - During his first couple of years as a lawyer, Brandon C. Rose worked in a litigation firm handling a wide variety of cases, including police misconduct, civil rights and some employment matters. He says that background has helped him since he switched to family law.

"I found it was very useful ... to have that background in a lot of different things. Family law is diverse, he said, and cases often cross into other legal areas, such as finance, tax or real estate. His previous experience helps him with many of those cases.

His knowledge of general civil litigation and procedure helped him win a recent case that traced back to a divorce finalized in December 2000. Rose's client was a "Silicon Valley serial entrepreneur" who had discussed an idea for a new venture with his wife during their marriage. He incorporated it before their divorce, but he didn't launch it until much later.

Their divorce judgment didn't mention the nascent business because "it wasn't really significant" at the time, Rose said. But by 2019, it was, and the former wife asserted an interest.

Rose defeated her claim in both the trial and appellate courts, with knowledge from his general civil litigation background. He argued that the wife had signed a general release that waived all claims not dealt with by their divorce settlement.

"There's not a lot of ... appellate cases discussing the application of general releases to family law issues," he said. That lack can "open the door to someone arguing that family law is unique." But in this case, it wasn't unique, and the general release controlled.

Another case involved a business that a husband and wife had created in the 1990s and sold years later for millions. Well after their divorce, the wife claimed she had received additional stock in the business as separate property not accounted for in their property division.

Rose and his client, the husband, ended up having to dig through boxes in the husband's garage. They eventually discovered old documents showing that the husband had received matching separate-property shares, balancing out the wife's claim.

"It felt like it was a mystery ... trying to go back and figure out what happened in the mid-90s," Rose said. "When we saw the documents, it was like a eureka moment.

In yet another odd case, he obtained a judgment that required his client's ex-husband to pay her about $2 million. But when the husband died before paying it, the case "turned into an epic," Rose said. It eventually encompassed the couple's house, a trust, the husband's second wife, a probate action, a bank about to foreclose on the

house and buyers lined up to purchase it. Eventually, he was to delay the foreclosure and sell the house for his client.

"They're all unique in their own way," Rose said about the cases he handles.

-DON DEBENEDICTIS