The Schachter Law Firm, LLC

What the firm handles

Family law is all this Savannah firm does, and the range within it is wide. The Schachter Law Firm handles divorce, child custody, child support, and alimony for clients in Savannah and across Georgia. It also takes on property division, paternity and legitimation, prenuptial and postnuptial agreements, annulment, and legal separation.

The list runs past the cases people expect. The firm also handles mediation, contempt actions, and restraining orders in family violence cases. Contempt work matters after a case ends, when one side does not follow a support or custody order. Keeping that under one roof means a client does not have to find a new lawyer when an old order breaks down.

Some of these areas carry their own rules. Paternity and legitimation decide a father's legal standing with a child, which shapes the custody and support that follow. Prenuptial and postnuptial agreements set terms before or during a marriage. Because the firm handles both the agreements and the later disputes, a client gets one office that already knows the file.

High-asset divorce and contested custody

The firm states that it handles high-asset divorces and complex or contested custody matters. Those cases often turn on money that is hard to find and harder to value. To meet that, the firm works with outside professionals on valuation, discovery of assets, and related financial questions.

That approach fits divorces where a business, real estate, or hidden accounts sit in the marital estate. Bringing in valuation and discovery help is how a lawyer tests what a spouse reports against what the records show. Naming that approach up front is more useful to a reader than any adjective about strength.

Custody work here covers contested custody and parenting time disputes, along with international child custody. International custody carries treaty rules and jurisdiction questions that a routine local custody fight does not. Listing it as a stated area tells a parent with a cross-border problem that the firm has met the type before.

Where the firm works and how it is built

The firm is based in Savannah and represents clients across Georgia. It is built around one subject, with a founder who runs it and a second attorney who carries family law matters. A client with a divorce or a custody dispute reaches lawyers whose daily work is that same subject rather than a single department inside a general firm.

That build has a plain benefit for the kind of case the firm takes. Family law moves through local courts and local judges, and a Savannah firm that works these cases day to day knows how those courts run. In my opinion, that local footing counts for as much as any credential once a case reaches a hearing.

Who does the work

David I. Schachter

David I. Schachter is the firm's Founding Member and Managing Partner. He attended Case Western Reserve University School of Law. His work centers on divorce and family law, and covers child custody, child support, and international child custody disputes. He also represents clients in high-asset divorce cases and in contested custody and parenting time matters.

Schachter did not start in Savannah cold. Before founding the firm, he built and managed the Savannah offices of two other family law firms. He also practiced at Parker Rosen, LLC in Minneapolis and at Hunter Maclean in Savannah. He has also testified on legal fees in domestic relations cases, a subject courts sometimes ask an outside witness to address.

One decision gives a concrete marker of his appellate work. Schachter established precedent in Leone v. Griffin, 342 Ga. App. 474 (2017), a Georgia Court of Appeals case. A named, citable appellate result carries more weight than a claim, because anyone can read the opinion and see what the court held.

J. Brett Brinson

J. Brett Brinson is an attorney at the firm. He grew up in Collins, Georgia, and graduated from Georgia Southern University in 2010, where he studied history and political science. He earned his JD from the Walter F. George School of Law at Mercer University in 2014.

Brinson worked at the law office of Josh D. Tucker, P.C. before he joined the firm in Savannah in 2016. His practice centers on divorce and separation. Two attorneys with stated family law records give a client more than one point of contact within the same office, and a second lawyer who can carry a file when the first is in court.

What the record shows

As a reviewer, I weigh what a firm can show over what it says. Here the showing is specific: a named appellate case, two attorneys with named law schools and graduation years, and a practice built only on family law. Those are checkable facts rather than adjectives, which is the standard this directory holds firms to.

The single focus is itself a signal. The firm takes divorce, custody, support, and the agreements and disputes that sit around them, and stays inside that one area of Georgia law. In my opinion, that kind of focus tends to suit a client whose case belongs squarely in family court, and who wants a lawyer who spends the working day on exactly that.