Family Law Section Meeting (virtual)

Renee Chernus

Greene Taubman Dias Chernus Simborg & Dominguez LLP

Renée Chernus has been practicing law in Marin County for forty years. She grew up in Bergen County, New Jersey, and moved to Marin County after earning her JD at New York Law School in 1979. She earned her undergraduate degree at Syracuse University in 1976.

Renee became a certified specialist in Family Law by the California State Bar in 1999. Since 2005 she has been a Fellow in the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, and has been recognized annually on the Northern California Super Lawyers list published by Thomson Reuters and San Francisco magazine. She has also been awarded an AV Preeminent® Peer Review Rating from Martindale-Hubbell, the highest possible distinction for legal ability and ethical standards.

Renée provides effective, efficient representation for families in transition. Renee’s diversified family law practice includes both litigation and mediation services, child custody and visitation rights, complex property asset and compensation division, support rights, and preparation and negotiations of prenuptial and marital settlement agreements.

Renee works as a private mediator and a discovery referee.

After years of a solo practice, Renee merged her practice with the firm of Greene, Taubman and Dias, reconnecting with C. Clay Greene, who was her first employer in Marin County.

She has extensive experience in conducting successful settlement conferences on complex financial and family issues. She served as a long time Board Member of Marin County Legal Aid and for several years chaired the Family Law Section of the Marin County Bar Association. She is a past President and Board Member of the Northern California Chapter of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, and currently serves on the Board of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers Foundation.

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Alexandra 'Lexi' Mussallem

Mussallem Family Law, P.C.

Alexandra (“Lexi”) Mussallem was admitted to the State Bar of California in 1997 and has focused exclusively on family law since her admission. She is a Certified Family Law Specialist, California Board of Legal Specialization. Lexi graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1992, receiving a B.A. in Political Science with an emphasis in Latin and Classical Literature. From 1989 to 1990, Lexi participated in the University of California Education Abroad Program studying in Bologna, Padua, and Venice, Italy. After graduating from UCLA, she returned to Bologna, Italy to live and work. Lexi graduated in 1996 from Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco.

Lexi started her legal career with Riede, McCall & Mason in San Rafael as a family law associate. In 2007, she joined Maple, DeLacey and Mussallem LLP as a partner, practicing in both San Francisco and Marin Counties. She continued as a partner with Maple & Mussallem LLP from 2014 until 2021, at which time she formed Mussallem Family Law, P.C. While Lexi’s office is located in San Rafael, she continues to litigate matters in both San Francisco Superior Court and Marin County Superior Court and serve clients in alternate dispute resolution throughout the Bay Area.

Over the course of her twenty-five year career, Lexi has developed a practice that focuses on the myriad of ways in which complex financial issues present themselves in the field of family law. She specializes in complex property division, child support, spousal support, post-judgment support modifications and enforcement, and prenuptial and postnuptial agreements. She has extensive experience with diverse compensation and corporate structures, including general and limited partnership interests, LLC membership interests, incentive and non-qualified stock options, and restricted stock units. She has represented owners and employees, or their spouses, of both public and private companies.

Lexi’s has a thriving practice in both litigation and mediation. Her litigation practice involves pre-trial, trial, discovery, and motion work. In addition, over the last ten years, Lexi has refined her alternate dispute resolution skills serving clients as a family law mediator, a consulting attorney to clients in mediation, and a private settlement judge. Lexi is an AAML Trained Mediator having recently completed the intensive mediation training sponsored by the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers. Early in her career, she completed the training provided by the Northern California Mediation Center.

Lexi is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, Northern California Chapter, is certified as a Family Law Specialist by the State Bar of California, Board of Legal Specialization, and is a member of the Marin County Bar Association as well as the Bar Association of San Francisco. She has previously served as a co-chair of the AAML Symposium and been a presenter at the AAML Symposium on the subject of working with a vocational expert in support cases. For several years, Lexi has mentored new family law trial lawyers as a Group Leader for the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers Trial Practicum. She regularly volunteers for the Marin County Superior Court in the Bench/Bar Settlement Conference program and for the San Francisco Superior Court in the Settlement Master program. She has also served as an arbitrator for the Marin County Bar Association's Fee Dispute Arbitration Program. Lexi has served on the Board of Directors for Willow Creek Academy in Sausalito, California as well as on the Board of Directors for Legal Aid of Marin.

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