Suzanne Griffiths

From the very first time I consulted with Suzanne, I was extremely impressed with her and her PA, Lisa. They are an incredible team. My situation was made more complicated because my daughter had received major injuries from a car accident. During the process of the divorce, Suzanne had to e...ducate opposing counsel on several issues. Suzanne persevered and we ended up with everything that I wanted and needed and then some. Some lawyers of her stature would have handed off my case to someone different in their firm because I know that she handles divorce/family situations where the assets are much larger than mine. She remained with me and helped me achieve exactly what I wanted and needed. I would never be able to say enough positive statements about Suzanne and Lisa. These incredibly talented, strong, and compassionate women made the quality of not only my life, but my childrens' lives exceptional.

First and foremost, I want to emphasize that litigation should be avoided at all costs . . . because the greatest cost will be your peace of mind for the years that it can take for a complex and contentious divorce to travel its way through the legal system. However, if you cannot avoid litigation, ...then there is no better lawyer to have on your side for a divorce. I had originally hired Suzanne's partner Sheila Gutterman, naively believing that I would be having a collaborative divorce. However, it quickly came to pass that there was no way to avoid litigation and Sheila handed my case off to Suzanne, to my initial shock and dismay. My case was a complex one involving substantial assets, including a privately held company co-founded by my ex-husband and I during the marriage, additional divorce related litigation initiated by my ex-husband in another state, and most importantly, three young children. I feel that I am highly qualified to rate Suzanne's performance as an attorney as I am one myself, and I have served as the general counsel of several companies, so I have had the opportunity to evaluate many attorneys over several decades. I can honestly say that Suzanne is in the 99th percentile of attorneys who I have worked with over the years. Suzanne knows Colorado family law backwards and forwards, but most importantly, she really understands people and their motivations. Suzanne has an uncanny ability to predict what may be coming down the pipeline and the crazy, erratic behavior that can occur in high conflict divorce cases. Suzanne's written work, in terms of motions and briefs, is of the highest caliber. She really gets to the essence of the issues, and dispenses with superfluous matters that simply clutter and confuse the argument. However, where Suzanne really shines is in depositions and in the courtroom. Suzanne has the ability to ask all of the right questions and make compelling arguments. She is able to think on her feet and change course, whenever necessary. I had the opportunity to see Suzanne in action for numerous hearings and over the course of a trial that lasted more than two weeks. Despite a grueling trial schedule, Suzanne was always on top of the issues and well prepared for each day at trial. My case was very complex with many different issues that needed to be resolved. Suzanne enlisted the aid of several of her colleagues to cover certain issues. They were also top notch attorneys and Suzanne remained involved and informed even when another attorney was handling different matters. Suzanne's paralegal, Lisa, is an absolute star. She is more capable than most attorneys. But where she really shines is in her ability to manage tens of thousands of documents and to always be able to find exactly what is needed at a given time. My trial involved dozens of boxes of files. Lisa was able to provide Suzanne with exactly what was needed in the midst of heated depositions and in trial. The financial outcome from my case was very fair and reasonable. But most importantly, Suzanne made a compelling case to protect the best interests of my children and I ended up with parenting orders that have given my children (and me!) peace and stability in the ensuing years. In addition to being very intelligent and hard-working, Suzanne is also very intuitive and compassionate (which might be a bit hard to uncover at first, given her very "no nonsense" exterior). But one quickly comes to realize that Suzanne is very astute about people and is genuinely concerned about the children in a divorce. She is highly ethical and has a great sense of humor, as well. Suzanne is probably the best attorney in Colorado to manage a high conflict and complex divorce case, particularly one that involves substantial assets with significant tracing and valuation issues. Divorce litigation should be a last resort, but if it is unavoidable, Suzanne is the attorney that you will want on your side.

I hired Suzanne Griffiths to represent me in my 25 year marriage ending in divorce, with kids. My ex-husband is one of the best business negotiators in the world, and in fact worked throughout many continents. I always felt sorry for anyone he negotiated with, because he always won, and unsuspectin...g people didn't realize what they were up against. I knew when we decided to divorce that this was going to be very ugly, as he was always used to winning, and I already knew that he had his own ideas about what was a "fair" settlement, and Suzanne had a fight on her hands at every turn. It got ugly on many occasions, but Suzanne was never deterred or intimidated. In fact, I would say my ex met his match for one of the few times in his life. She had a TON of information that had to be available at her fingertips at a moment's notice (during our 10.5 hr. mediation) and while she kept all the details in her head, the written facts were always able to be found in a moment (her supremely capable paralegal Lisa is extremely organized.) In fact, I would send hundreds of little notes to Suzanne and Lisa about little details and they kept those very organized so I had one less thing on my plate. In fact, that was the best thing about this divorce: The burden was lifted off of my shoulders, and they took everything upon themselves that they could. Of course we had many in-person visits and phone calls, not to mention emails to make sure what course of action I wanted to take, but after that, they took the reigns, making phone calls and getting necessary forms sent out to the correct people, finding out what kind of benefits and other information we had, it was just all moved from my plate to theirs, at a time when I was feeling very overwhelmed. Now our very fair (truly fair) separation agreement is signed, and they are helping me with all the forms for the house transfer, 401k transfer, etc., and I just can't say enough about my attorney. She has been fabulous, she is confident for a wonderful reason, that she is very competent and knows all the laws, and just seemed to drive every phone call with the judge and opposing counsel, she is the Woman in Charge at every turn, against every opposition. I highly recommend Suzanne Griffiths for divorces, she is the best I could ever imagine existing!! I was extremely blessed when I retained Suzanne and Lisa. Also, the amount of money it cost was considerably less than my ex-husband's attorney fees.

I was told relocation cases are the most difficult and I now understand why. The parent wanting to relocate will often do and say anything to accomplish their goal, which is to take their children away from the other parent. The divorce process in this case necessitates an inter-related set of issu...es: divorcing, dividing assets, allocation of maintenance and child support, and of course the custody of the children. All of these issues are contentious enough on their own, much less when they are all so dependent upon each other (as relocation is essentially a winner-takes-all, or at least winner-takes-most custody issue). I did not appreciate how brutal the process of divorce was until I lived it, and what is clear is that there is a lot of expertise that goes into building a case. Suzanne proactively established a team of some of the best in their field- from psychologists, to evaluators, to financial consultants and more. They not only help give the best possible outcome, but they also helped me cope with what was an unbelievably difficult process. Having experts who know what to do, can tell you what to expect before it actually happens, and make you feel confident in yourself and the process- that is a tremendous asset. Of course the outcome of the divorce is what matters most, and I believe I could not have achieved a better outcome with any other attorney. In fact I am likely one of the very few who have gone through a divorce process and felt very satisfied with the outcome. The key things I wanted to accomplish were: 1.) keep custody of my children and ensure that they maintained as much of their prior life as possible (same school, friends, extracurricular activities, extended family, etc), 2.) preserve as much of my assets as possible and 3.) minimize the maintenance burden. In terms of outcome, the children maintained their life as much as possible, and they remain here. We actually convinced my ex to stay here and we share custody (it was either that or she was going to lose them). I believe this is the best possible outcome for the children. In terms of asset retention and maintenance, I was pleasantly surprised with the outcome of both of those. And in case anyone is wondering about child support, there is none in my case. Obviously a referral for divorce is something that you never want to have to give someone. However if you have someone you care about that is about to go through a divorce, the best thing you can do is give them the opportunity for the best possible outcome. If ever anyone I care about needs a divorce lawyer, I will direct them to Suzanne.

I would highly recommend Suzanne Griffiths and her law firm. They represented me in a contentious divorce last year. I was impressed with Suzanne's professionalism, knowledge and genuine concern. At the last and final arbitration hearing we were there until 9:30 at night. She was determined to ge...t the case settled that night. I'm so thankful that we did and it was finally over.