Belinda Hanson

SAN MATEO - Belinda Hanson often represents high-profile, high-net-worth clients in and around Silicon Valley, such as founders of technology companies, venture capitalists and executives with hedge funds and private equity firms, as well as their spouses. Public records show that one current client of the firm is a co-founder of Google.

Many of her matters deal with issues such as the complexities of tracing cryptocurrency transfers or of untangling trusts and estate plans that unfairly reduced a couple’s community property. They are so complex that Hanson typically only works on about 10 matters at a time.

But some years ago, she had a very different practice. She took on many family law matters as a mediator. She worked in a firm with her father where they also often represented clients using the collaborative approach to divorce.

Then, in the early 2000s, she was consulting with a high-net-worth client when mediation collapsed, and the case had to be litigated. “It was my first big venture capital case involving one of the main venture capital firms,” she said. That case set her on the path to her current practice.

Hanson said her career in family law from 1993 to the present, in some ways, followed the arc of the development of Silicon Valley. Early on, a big case involved a doctor with a second home near Lake Tahoe. Now, her cases involve tech and investment leaders worth well over $100 million.

“There weren’t a lot of lawyers early on who understood venture capital and how it worked and how it’s structured,” she said. But with that first big case, she became an early expert in venture capital divorce. “That led me into private equity and into hedge funds and … [representing] tech founders.”

To represent parties in such matters, she and her colleagues have had to learn about individual venture capital and investment firms and how they compensate themselves and arrange deals with limited partners.

“Lately, a lot of cases involve cryptocurrency, and that’s the wild, wild west both in family law and in the world at large because it’s a very uncertain area that’s not very clearly regulated at the moment,” Hanson said. “Those assets are easy to hide. You can locate them, but it’s tricky.”

With crypto, there are no clear statements showing transfers of funds in or out of accounts. “We end up getting lots of screenshots or incomplete sets of statements.” Even with the help of forensic specialists to dig through blockchains, sometimes all that can be found is money going out of accounts, but not where it ends up.

“Even figuring out who to subpoena in a cryptocurrency case can be challenging,” she said.

Another trend in her cases lately are ones raising difficult issues in other areas of the law, such as tax, trusts and estates or corporate entities that require setting up interdisciplinary teams.

Hanson also has some expertise in dealing with royalties from music publishing. That came about from representing Neil Young.

- DON DEBENEDICTIS