Tanya Stanish
Senior Partner
"I've spent my career handling divorces and related issues for clients of high asset wealth. I understand the complexity, generational and family issues as well as lifestyle perspectives."
Meet Tanya
- Bio
- Admissions
- Memberships
A highly experienced negotiator and formidable litigator, Tanya Stanish represents a wide variety of clients, from prominent executives, entrepreneurs, medical and legal professionals to professional athletes, spouses with trusts and stay-at-home spouses. Her work includes every aspect of complex and high net-worth family law such as executive compensation plans, trusts and business interests as well as high-conflict child custody and parenting issues. Trial experience includes success with complex divorces and paternity and domestic violence cases. Outside the courtroom, she has considerable proficiency with prenuptial and postnuptial agreements for wealthy individuals.
High net worth family law often involves legacy and generational money, and Tanya understands the desire to protect family and children's' interests in a divorce proceeding. With a background in economics, mathematics and accounting, she knows the nuances of balance sheets and can decipher complicated assets, incentive plans, trusts and distribution issues – whether you are protecting the wealth or are trying to capture it. She also understands lifestyle perspectives of her clients. Child and spousal support is often complex due to wealth, and Tanya knows how to present it to the court.
Over her career, Tanya has turned around cases for clients who were previously with other attorneys. After developing expectations and goals with clients, she is well known for her advocacy and insight. She has gained positive results in many divorce, custody and parenting cases and successfully negotiated difficult settlements.
Representative cases include:
Litigated a substantial increase in a business owner/father’s parenting time with his son against a mother who wanted minimal contact and alienation of the child from his father.
Represented ex-husband with generational wealth and trust interests and successfully negotiated the termination of substantial spousal support payments to his ex-wife.
Represented wife and stay-at-home mother of prominent professional and obtained permanent maintenance award of spousal support plus a post-marriage percentage share of husband’s royalty income from various patents he held.
During what can be a confusing and tumultuous time, clients rely on the steady, compassionate and insightful counsel of Tanya, and appreciate her assistance in easing the financial and emotional transition into a new life post-divorce.
- Illinois (1995)
Memberships
- Illinois State Bar Association (Former Member of Legislative Committee and Family Law Section Council)
- Chicago Bar Association (Past President of Young Lawyers Section Family Law Committee)
Leadership Roles
- DePaul University College of Law – President, Schiller DuCanto and Fleck, LLP Family Law Advisory Board (2006-08)
- Illinois Institute for Continuing Legal Education (IICLE) – Member, Family Law Advisory Committee
- Latin School of Chicago – Divorce Class Instructor, Adult Education Program
- Collaborative Law Institute of Illinois – Certificate of Collaborative Law
- DePaul University Center for Dispute Resolution – Certificate of Professional Achievement in Family and Divorce Mediation Training
Court Service
- Former Child Representative, Cook County
Tanya Stanish
Senior Partner
"I've spent my career handling divorces and related issues for clients of high asset wealth. I understand the complexity, generational and family issues as well as lifestyle perspectives."
Biography
A highly experienced negotiator and formidable litigator, Tanya Stanish represents a wide variety of clients, from prominent executives, entrepreneurs, medical and legal professionals to professional athletes, spouses with trusts and stay-at-home spouses. Her work includes every aspect of complex and high net-worth family law such as executive
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Client Reviews
- "Tanya Stanish is an amazing attorney. Her knowledge of the law as well as her attention to the specific facts of my case were outstanding. My divorce was a very high conflict and stressful case, and she successfully got me through it every step of the way. Not only is she extremely knowledgeable and experienced with the law, but she helped prepare me each step of the way and guided me with the best advice from week to week. Her people skills and the way she relates to the client are also outstanding. I recommend Tanya to everyone I know who is going through a divorce. I could not have been in better hands."
- "Tanya Stanish is an incredible attorney. She showed up for me, fought for my worth, and did not allow my life to be obliterated from existence. There are no words to express how I feel, but I am fully aware none of this would have come to be without Tanya and her team. I am ETERNALLY grateful and I will never forget what she has done for me. I finally feel like I can breathe again and I will experience peace, contentment, and JOY!"
- "Tanya Stanish was a saving grace during my divorce. She gave me confidence that everything would work out especially in times when things got bumpy on our way to the finish line. Thanks to Tanya, my family has our home, and that means everything to me. I have so much respect and gratitude for all she and her team did to help me feel secure about the future."
- "How can I ever thank Tanya Stanish enough for being such a legal genius, phenomenal strategist, outstanding advocate, and all around KICK ASS attorney?!?! I am so very grateful for EVERYTHING she has done for me. I look back to the day that I came to see her, a pathetic, broken, frightened old lady, and I thank God that she saw enough in me/my case to take it on. I have NO doubt that it would have turned out much differently if she had not been kind enough to take my case. I would be stuck with a horrible deal. Tanya was patient and never gave up. I'm so grateful for all she did for me. She is AMAZING!"
- "Both of my children have repeatedly told me they don't want to move to Canada. Fighting to keep my children with me here in the United States has been the most important event in my life. I can't thank Tanya Stanish enough for all of her effort."
- "Tanya Stanish worked tirelessly in my child custody case. I have 6 beautiful children, and doing the right thing as a parent for them, regardless of cost, is all I care about. Tanya made it possible for me to raise my kids to be as healthy and successful as possible. I can't thank her enough."
- "Tanya Stanish guided me through difficult times and gave me excellent advice. I trusted her representation and was very pleased with the outcome. I still send her a Christmas card every year and keep in touch."
- "Tanya Stanish provided outstanding representation in my divorce case. Through the awful divorce, my luck was somehow finding such a great attorney who overextended herself in many ways. I am so grateful for Tanya and appreciate all she did to ensure my best interests were covered."
- "I found Tanya Stanish's guidance to be incredibly valuable, particularly her willingness to provide best‑guess probabilities and to hear my thoughts, opinions, and questions. Her approach is anything but standard. Her style is unique and you can tell she really cares about her clients."
- "Tanya Stanish helped me through the worst 2 years of my life. I was in a losing battle with all of the local attorneys here in Chicago, but thankfully Tanya accepted my case. She and her team handled my ex wife so professionally, and exposed all of her faults and gave me a chance to have a life after my divorce. A day doesn't go by when my family doesn't mention how lucky I was so have such a good attorney to help me with my divorce/child custody case. Thanks to Tanya, I can finally sleep again and am gaining back some of the weight I lost. Tanya was definitely my savior."
- "I can't thank Tanya Stanish enough for her excellent, excellent 'lawyering' abilities. She really is a brilliant, exceptional adversary and patient as heck with an overwrought wife. I really want to let people (partners at SDF and potential clients) know how terrific she is."
- "Tanya Stanish and her team were wonderful to work with during my divorce case. I can't say "thank you" enough for fighting on my behalf over the last few years and for really listening to the things which are important to me."
- "There's really nothing I can say to adequately express my gratitude towards Tanya Stanish. I wasn't a very religious person at all before my divorce, but that awful day I showed up at Schiller, I do think God sent me to Tanya. Other than an illness or medical condition, it could not have been a more horrid experience, and Tanya not only weathered the storm, but she succeeded in bringing the sun back into my life. When it all ended, I felt relief, peace, but most of all I felt this overwhelming sense of gratitude. I tell everyone about Tanya - what a kick ass attorney she is, but also a wonderful person."
- "I will forever be grateful for Tanya Stanish. She took me under her wing and never stopped fighting for my best interests. I know the outcome of my case would have been very different without Tanya."
Credentials
Bar Admissions
- Illinois (1995)
Education
- DePaul University College of Law, J.D., Order of the Coif, with honors, 1995, American Jurisprudence Awards
- DePauw University, B.A., (1991) Economics; Management Fellows Student
Professional Memberships
Memberships
- Illinois State Bar Association (Former Member of Legislative Committee and Family Law Section Council)
- Chicago Bar Association (Past President of Young Lawyers Section Family Law Committee)
Leadership Roles
- DePaul University College of Law – President, Schiller DuCanto and Fleck, LLP Family Law Advisory Board (2006-08)
- Illinois Institute for Continuing Legal Education (IICLE) – Member, Family Law Advisory Committee
- Latin School of Chicago – Divorce Class Instructor, Adult Education Program
- Collaborative Law Institute of Illinois – Certificate of Collaborative Law
- DePaul University Center for Dispute Resolution – Certificate of Professional Achievement in Family and Divorce Mediation Training
Court Service
- Former Child Representative, Cook County
Media & Publications
Articles & Blogs
- Tanya Stanish Profiled as a Legal Leader by Hinsdale Living and Sheridan Road Magazines, 2023
- Tanya Stanish Featured in Sheridan Road Magazine, March 2022
- Summer Newsletter 2018
- "Local relocation" in custody cases now bigger problem than distant moves
- New Child Custody/Support Laws: How the changes affect divorcing couples
- Tanya Stanish was interviewed on Univision regarding the new child support laws in Illinois
- US Supreme Court Upholds Adoption Rights
- Family Law Practitioner Wins With Compassion
- A reason to reflect on protection orders
- Baby Veronica: Is it Possible to Mediate the Impossible?
- Divorce: Maximizing Your Results and Minimizing Your Fees and Time
Lectures
- “Post-Divorce Representation,” Illinois Institute for Continuing Legal Education (IICLE), 2007-08
- “Commingled and Transmuted Property: Reimbursements Owed between Marital and Non-Marital Estates,” Chapter in Property Issues in Family Law Handbook, Illinois State Bar Association, September 2006
- “Cutting-Edge Illinois Custody Law,” Chapter in Handbook for Fifth Annual Family Law Conference, Illinois Institute for Continuing Legal Education, Spring 2006
- “Issues in Paternity Litigation,” Chapter in Handbook for Fourth Annual Family Law Conference, Illinois Institute for Continuing Legal Education, April 2005
- “How to Prepare and Obtain an Order of Protection,” Chapter in Handbook for The Chicago Bar Association Young Lawyers Section: A Divorce Primer for New Attorneys, April 2004
- “The Essentials of Effective Dealings with Clients.” Jenner & Block LLP, Seminar, January 2003
- “English Only Rules in the Workplace: Discrimination of Employer Prerogative.” DePaul Business Law Journal, Spring/Summer, 1995
Authorships
- Interviewed on NBC 5 Chicago regarding Brad Pitt child abuse allegations, September 2016.
- Interviewed for CBS Local, "Spouse on Ashley Madison? Read These Tips," August 2015.
- “A Quiet Divorce,” Worth (February 2006)
- Co-Author, “Family Law in Illinois,” Manual for National Business Institute (2003)
- Co-Author, “Paralegals in Family Law Practice in Illinois,” Manual for Institute for Paralegal Education (2001)
Videos
Awards & Recognition
Awards & Accolades
- Lawdragon 500 Leading Family Lawyers (2025)
- Illinois Top Leading Lawyers (2022)
- Profiled In Crain’s Notable Women In Law For 2020
-
Lawyers of Distinction (2020)
- Top 100 Civil Plaintiff – The National Trial Lawyers (2020)
- Top 100 Trial Lawyers – The National Trial Lawyers (2012-2018)
- Listed in The Best Lawyers in America, Naifeth and Smith (2010-2025)
- Illinois Super Lawyer – Family Law (2006 & 2012-2025)
- Leading Lawyers Network – Leading Lawyer in Family Law (2006-2020)
- Top 10 Women Consumer Lawyers - Leading Lawyers Network (2019)
- Top 50 Women Consumer Lawyers - Leading Lawyers Network (2011-2012)
- Top 100 Women Consumer Lawyers - Leading Lawyers Network (2015, 2016)