Diane Dornburg

As a lawyer representing children, Diane sees families from the children’s viewpoint and gives the children a voice in disputes between their parents.

Diane is an experienced litigator, mediator and parenting coordinator. Diane is enthusiastic about alternative approaches to handling family law problems. Everyone in the family benefits when parents and children have clear expectations and minimal conflict.

After graduating from Gustavus Adolphus College and University of Michigan Law School, Diane represented low-income persons in Ann Arbor, Muscatine and Des Moines for over 25 years, most of that time as the supervising attorney of the family law unit at the Legal Aid Society of Polk County. For nearly two decades, she was an associate at Carney & Appleby, where she represented parents and children in divorce, custody, domestic violence and all other types of family law cases.

In addition to her work as a lawyer, Diane facilitates a continuing care group at Powell Chemical Dependency Center, is actively involved in her church and has served on the Walnut Street School PTO. She is a member of the Polk County Bar Association Family Law Committee, Association of Family and Conciliation Courts, Iowa Collaborative Divorce Practice Group and International Academy of Collaborative Professionals. For more than 20 years she was the Legislative Chair for the Family & Juvenile Law Section of the Iowa State Bar, and served on the Iowa Supreme Court Family Law Reform Task Force.

Diane is passionate about helping families. She has been a foster parent, stepparent, adoptive parent, grandparent and guardian. “I see right in front of me my own kids who struggle with their parents’ family conflict, mental illness, substance abuse, incarceration, and generational domestic violence. I learn from my kids every day; they remind me of the realities of life as I practice family law.”