Grenadier, Duffett, Levi, Winkler & Rubin, P.C.

Focus and practice areas

Grenadier, Duffett, Levi, Winkler & Rubin, P.C. is a family law firm based in Northern Virginia. It has worked with clients on family matters since 1974. The main office is in Reston, with a second office in Alexandria available by appointment.

The work stays inside domestic relations. The firm handles divorce, child support, spousal support and alimony, child custody, and equitable distribution of property. It also drafts marital agreements, including prenuptial and postnuptial agreements, and takes on post-divorce actions when an order needs review or enforcement.

Beyond the core divorce work, the firm covers paternity, name changes, protective orders, and step parent adoption. It also handles same-sex marriage and divorce matters. In my opinion, that spread reads as a practice that has stayed with one field for a long time rather than spreading itself thin across unrelated areas of law.

How the team is built

The firm carries the names of five people in its title, and each is an active attorney. Ilona Ely Grenadier is the founding partner. She has practiced law since the late 1960s and works as a litigator and negotiator, which puts the founder's own experience at the center of the firm's history.

The partner group runs deep on years. Benton S. Duffett III has practiced family and divorce law for more than 35 years and works across domestic relations as a litigator and negotiator. Lisa L. Levi has more than 25 years in domestic relations and works as a litigator in these matters.

The firm is run by two co-managing partners. John T. Winkler II has more than 25 years in family law. He is a military officer, and he represents military service members and their spouses, a background that matters for the support, custody and residency questions that come with military service. Carole A. Rubin has more than 18 years in domestic relations. She is a licensed mediator in Virginia for custody and support issues, and she advises clients on alternative dispute resolution.

Newer voices on the roster

Katherine D. Smith, known as Kitty, is the firm's junior partner. She has 15 years of experience in domestic relations and works as a litigator and negotiator. The firm also lists Ashley Barendse among its attorneys.

Erin Elizabeth Masin graduated from the University of Virginia and earned her Juris Doctor from Emory University School of Law. She represents clients in divorce, spousal support, equitable distribution, child custody and child support, and she also handles personal injury cases. Adrian P. Showells II graduated from Marymount University and earned his Juris Doctor from Howard University School of Law. He handles divorce, equitable distribution, custody, visitation and support, and he has served as lead counsel in both jury and bench trials. He has also presented continuing legal education sessions on protective orders and uncontested divorces.

Read together, the attorney pages describe a firm the states holds over 100 years of combined experience among its lawyers. That figure comes from the firm's own count. What supports it is the run of individual tenures listed above, which land in the same range.

How cases move through the firm

The firm sets out more than one route through a divorce. It describes planning, negotiation, mediation, arbitration, and litigation as the ways a case can proceed. That range gives a client options short of a courtroom, and it keeps trial on the table when settlement talks stall.

Mediation has a named resource here. Carole A. Rubin's license as a Virginia mediator for custody and support means the firm can speak to that process from direct practice rather than referral. Several of the attorneys are described as both litigators and negotiators, so the same lawyer can carry a matter from talks into a hearing if it comes to that.

As a reviewer, I read this as a firm that does not push every matter toward one method. The presence of a mediator alongside trial counsel suggests a practice set up to match the approach to the dispute in front of it.

Where the firm works

The attorneys serve clients across Northern Virginia. On the city side, that covers Alexandria, Falls Church, Fairfax and Fredericksburg. The county reach runs to Arlington, Fairfax, Fauquier, Stafford, Spotsylvania, Loudoun and Prince William.

That is a wide slice of the region's courts. For a family law client, the venue matters, because custody and support cases follow local practice and local judges. A firm that names this many jurisdictions is signaling that it appears in each of them, and the Reston base sits within easy reach of most.

What the record shows

The strongest points in the firm's favor are on the page and easy to check. It has a start date of 1974 and has kept its family law focus across those years. It names its attorneys, lists each one's years in practice, and ties specific skills to specific people: a mediator for custody and support, a military officer for service member cases, trial counsel with jury and bench experience.

The firm keeps its published material to the work itself. It describes the matters it handles and the areas it serves without leaning on ranking claims. That fits a directory built on evidence, because a reader can weigh the tenures and the practice areas against their own case.

In my opinion, the fair summary is a long-running Northern Virginia family law firm with a partner group measured in decades and a set of younger attorneys behind them. A prospective client should confirm current availability and discuss the facts of their own matter, since the right approach depends on the case. What the firm puts forward is a steady, single-field practice with named people standing behind each area it lists.