Michael Bonetto is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers (AAML) and a Certified Family Law Specialist, a pairing of credentials held by only a small number of family law attorneys in California. Comprised of the nation’s top family law attorneys, AAML Fellows are recognized as preeminent practitioners with the highest levels of knowledge, skill, and integrity; each Fellow must complete a rigorous selection process that includes interviews, examinations, and professional and judicial evaluations. As a Certified Family Law Specialist, Michael is also among an elite group of recognized experts certified by the State Bar of California Board of Legal Specialization.
A leader in the Bay Area and Northern California family law community, Michael has practiced family law exclusively for 19 years, since his admission to the bar in 2007. Over that time he has developed deep expertise in all areas of family law, including spousal and child support issues, complex property division, business valuation, separate property tracing, child custody and visitation, premarital agreements that protect business and real estate interests, and prosecuting and defending domestic violence restraining orders.
Business valuation and separate-property tracing are the core of Michael’s practice. He regularly represents business owners, founders, and executives whose divorces turn on the value and character of closely held companies, professional practices, real estate holdings, and equity compensation such as restricted stock, pre-IPO interests, and carried interest. In these matters he works closely with forensic accountants, business valuators, and other financial experts, directing the tracing of separate and community funds, reconstructing the income available for support from business records, and pressure-testing valuations across the income, market, and asset approaches to build the financial record a court or negotiated settlement requires. His work tends to center on the questions that decide these cases: how the date of separation affects value, how separate-property contributions to a business are traced and documented, and how goodwill, buy-sell agreements, and non-compete considerations bear on dividing a company. He also advises on the characterization of complex assets under California community property law, including a matter in which his analysis of California legal authority was sought in connection with proceedings outside the United States.
Michael brings a unique combination of empathy, strategy, and analytical rigor to his cases. His practice supports clients from a variety of backgrounds: professional athletes and business owners with extremely complex finances, as well as middle-class professionals looking for a cost-efficient and effective way to divide their assets. In every matter he scopes the expert work to the issues that will actually move the case rather than running up fees. He represents clients throughout the Bay Area and Northern California, with a particular focus on high-asset and business-owner matters in Contra Costa County, and works alongside colleagues across Moradi Neufer’s California practice, which serves clients in Los Angeles and Orange County as well.
Michael made the “Super Lawyer Rising Star” list in 2015, and he has been selected as a “Northern California Super Lawyer” from 2016 to 2026. Each year, no more than five percent of the lawyers in the state are selected by the research team at Super Lawyers to receive this honor. He has also been recognized in Best Lawyers in America for family law every year since 2022.
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