Peter A. Lauzon

LOS ANGELES - Peter A. Lauzon opened the doors of the family law boutique Lauzon Paluch in 2020 after two decades of practicing at his own and other small firms. In addition to himself and law partner Nathalie E.A. Paluch, the firm has two associates and a paralegal.

"There's an advantage to having both a male and a female at the firm," he said, "because clients tend to gravitate to one or the other of us. We're glad to allow them the choice."

"We're very busy," Lauzon added. "One of our best years was during COVID, and things haven't slowed down much. People sat around at home looking at the cracks in their houses and the cracks in their relationships and decided to do something about them."

Los Angeles has a large population, he observed. "I figure half will get divorced."

He spoke in early March. "This morning, we had an excellent result for a woman who came to this country as a young Hispanic who worked for years starting a business and building up a real estate portfolio." After she divorced, her former husband tried to attack the judgment on an omitted assets theory. "It was completely false, and the court resolved things completely in our favor."

Lauzon summed up the outcome this way, after the court awarded fees to his client: "He attempted to utilize the legal system to his advantage, but it turned out ultimately to his disadvantage."

Lauzon is adept at the litigation of international and interstate custody matters. He served as lead attorney in an international custody suit involving a well-known film director whom he declined to name. In a different case, he represented a woman whose former partner took their child and fled overseas. "I returned a child wrongfully held in Italy," using tools available under the Hague Convention. "It took 18 months, but I reunited my client with her son."

The lure of family law became clear early in Lauzon's career. "The litigation firm I was in was downsizing, and a partner suggested I meet with Joe Mannis." That was prominent family law practitioner Joseph Mannis of Beverly Hills' Hersh Mannis LLP. "He became a mentor and I really came to like the work," Lauzon said.

"It's different from corporate law. There's a personal contact with people, and their stories interest me. It's satisfying to do something for people with real problems. Most of the time, I can be successful for them, and the resolution feels very fulfilling."

- JOHN ROEMER