Hon. Anita Santos (Ret.)

Profile

Family Law Specialist

Hon. Anita Santos (Ret.) joined ADR Services, Inc. in 2022 after eight years as a Judge of the Superior Court for the County of Contra Costa, with assignments in the Family Law Division, Felony Criminal Trials, the Juvenile Division, and a Domestic Violence Calendar. During her judicial tenure, Judge Santos presided over hundreds of contested and complex family law matters involving child custody and visitation, child and spousal support, marital dissolution, division of property, relocation, and tracing disputes. As her final assignment prior to retirement, Judge Santos presided over hundreds of domestic violence restraining order hearings and trials. These cases were both short cause and full evidentiary trials, and many included custody and visitation, property control, and child and spousal support issues.

Prior to her years as a Judge presiding over family law matters, Judge Santos served as a Child Support Commissioner for two years. As a Commissioner, Judge Santos presided over thousands of short cause hearings and hundreds of long cause hearings regarding child support, temporary spousal support, and the calculation of the same, and attorney fee requests. This included hearings and trials over income available for support, calculation of income for those self-employed, overtime and bonus income, imputation of income, earning capacity, deviation from guideline support, determining the date(s) of separation, tax exemptions, hardships, retroactivity of support, attorney fees, jurisdiction, disclosures and/or disclosure violations, alternative calculation options, parenting time determination, child care costs and reimbursements, and child health-related costs & reimbursements.

Prior to her appointment to the bench, Judge Santos was a sole practitioner in an active and successful family law practice handling dissolutions, legal separations, parentage, child custody and visitation, spousal and child support, property division, pre and post-nuptial agreements, and restraining orders. She also served as a Deputy District Attorney for the County of Contra Costa handling all levels of criminal prosecution, including sexual assault and homicide.

Representative Cases

Testimonials

“What I like about Judge Santos is she is very real. She’s a straight shooter, and not only do you get her terrific knowledge and expertise and her neutrality, you get a sense that she really does care about the parties.”

“Judge Santos certainly knows that each case is different and all clients require different levels of hand-holding and strong-arming. She’s really in tune with who needs what and how to treat clients. She can switch hats and tell them what they need to hear, which is really helpful.”

“Judge Santos is absolutely capable of handling all family law matters: custody, visitation, support, asset division. Even complicated financial matters – she’s very well versed in that. In both of my cases with her we had expert CPAs, and she can speak with them fluently on all of the accounting issues, which is incredibly helpful when you’re dealing with a private judge.”

“Judge Santos was generous in sharing with the parties about her own experiences, and to me, that in turn made the parties feel comfortable and heard. It felt as though she understood what these parents were going through, which then allowed them to engage in compromise. What I found most important about her as a mediator was she didn’t make anyone feel rushed or forced. She had a professional guiding approach to mediation that helped the parties feel they had the power, all while giving direction and assistance to the attorneys to get an agreement done.”