About Pacific Northwest Family Law

A Law Firm Built for Every Phase of Family Life

Pacific Northwest Family Law was built around a simple but demanding idea: that the law should be used to help families endure, adapt, and move forward when life becomes difficult–whether through divorce, custody disputes, estate planning, or probate.

Families are not static. They grow, fracture, reconcile, and change across generations. The legal needs that arise from those changes are rarely isolated events. Divorce, custody disputes, estate planning, probate, and guardianships are not separate problems so much as different moments in the life of a family.

Our work exists because families do not need just one kind of help–they need the right kind of help at the right moment.

A Firm Built Around Families

We built our practice around the idea that family law is not a single event, but a continuum of responsibilities families carry throughout life.

We do not view family law as a narrow practice limited to divorce and courtroom disputes. We view it as the body of law that governs how families are protected, restructured, and supported over time.

That means helping families navigate separation and co-parenting when relationships fail.

It also means helping families plan responsibly through wills, trusts, and long-term planning.

And it means helping families carry out the wishes of loved ones, or resolve disputes, after loss.

These are different expressions of the same responsibility. Each requires foresight. Each requires restraint. Each demands an understanding that legal decisions made today echo far beyond the moment they are made.

Our work is guided by a unifying purpose: helping our clients be family heroes by making informed, principled decisions that protect what matters most.

➡ Firm Philosophy

Why This Firm Exists

Pacific Northwest Family Law began as Ashby Law in 2012, at a time when the firm handled a broader range of legal matters. Over time, it became clear that the work with the greatest impact was family-centered law — matters where legal decisions directly shape lives, relationships, and future generations.

The firm’s origins trace back to work at the highest levels of corporate litigation, where national and international companies entrusted complex, high-stakes matters to elite legal teams. The technical demands were significant. The standards were exacting. But the outcomes, more often than not, changed little beyond balance sheets and quarterly reports.

Family law revealed a different kind of impact.

In 2019, the firm was intentionally renamed Pacific Northwest Family Law to reflect that focus. The change was not cosmetic. It marked a deliberate commitment to treat family law as a serious specialty, rather than a secondary practice, and to build a firm structured around serving families across Washington through every stage of change.

Family law affects children, relationships, financial stability, and the ability of families to function long after a case ends. Few areas of law carry consequences that are so personal or so enduring.

Pacific Northwest Family Law was built to bring the discipline, preparation, and strategic rigor of elite legal practice into family-centered law, and to do so in the communities where families actually live.

That commitment remains at the core of who we are.

How We Practice Law

We believe family law is best practiced with clarity, preparation, and professional judgment.

Our attorneys do not approach cases reflexively or performatively. Litigation is a tool, not an identity. Negotiation is a process, not an ideology. Each case requires thoughtful analysis, honest communication, and a willingness to address difficult realities early rather than postpone them. Pacific Northwest Family Law attorneys are chosen for judgment, steadiness, and the ability to think strategically under pressure. These qualities matter more than theatrics in family law.

Our attorneys are independent professionals who exercise judgment informed by training, experience, and firmwide standards. While we welcome questions and thoughtful discussion, we do not operate as a corporate escalation structure where legal decisions are overridden through management layers. Professional judgment is respected and supported across the firm.

Our attorneys are chosen for judgment, steadiness, and the ability to think strategically under pressure — qualities that matter more than theatrics in family law.This approach allows our attorneys to focus on what matters most: guiding clients through complex decisions with steadiness, foresight, and respect for the long-term consequences of those decisions.

At Pacific Northwest Family Law, we practice within shared professional standards that emphasize communication, accountability, professionalism, and excellence.

➡ Firm Values

A Statewide Team, Locally Led

Pacific Northwest Family Law serves families across Washington through offices in Bellevue, Olympia, Spokane, the Tri-Cities, Yakima, and Walla Walla.

Our firm is structured to combine local leadership with firmwide standards. Senior attorneys anchor regional offices while collaborating closely across the firm to ensure consistency, preparation, and shared insight. Clients benefit from attorneys who understand local courts and communities, supported by the collective experience of a larger professional organization.

This statewide footprint allows us to appear regularly in courts from Seattle to Spokane and from the Tri-Cities to Walla Walla.

Schedule a New Client Interview

If you are facing a family law, estate planning, or probate matter, the first step is a new client interview. This conversation is designed to provide clarity about fit, process, and next steps, not to offer free legal advice or rush decisions.

Our goal is to help you understand your options so you can decide how you want to move forward.