Melanie Faith Gardner-Pawlak

Melanie Gardner-Pawlak, received her Juris Doctorate from the University of LaVerne in 1999. After practicing law in Woodland Hills for many years, she joined The Reape-Rickett Law Firm in 2016 working in the Calabasas office.

Ms. Gardner-Pawlak has been practicing family law for twenty-five years and has extensive trial experience in all aspects of family law matters including, child custody and visitation, child support, spousal support, division of property, premarital agreements, and domestic violence restraining orders. Melanie is extremely adept at strategizing and litigating matters involving complex compensation, including business ownership and valuation,  as well as highly contested child custody disputes for both divorce and paternity matters.

In 2024, Ms. Gardner-Pawlak was selected to the Southern California Super Lawyers list, her primary practice area is Family Law. 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. Super Lawyers, part of Thomson Reuters, is a rating service of outstanding lawyers from more than 70 practice areas who have attained a high degree of peer recognition and professional achievement. The annual selections are made using a patented multiphase process that includes a statewide survey of lawyers, an independent research evaluation of candidates and peer reviews by practice area.

She is a member of the Family Law Sections of the California State Bar, the Los Angeles County Bar Association, and the San Fernando Valley Bar Association. Ms. Gardner-Pawlak is also a member of the San Fernando Valley Bar Family Law Executive Committee, and volunteers as a Family Law Mediator for the Los Angeles Superior Court.