Colline Cheltenham is a family law attorney who specializes in handling divorces with substantial assets and advocating for abused women and father’s rights. Ms. Cheltenham’s passion for family law stems from her own life experiences, which provides her with significant insight to the emotional difficulties that clients suffer when going through a divorce or custody battle. This experience has been the foundation for her passion to aggressively handle these matters with integrity, diligence and excellence.
As a successful litigator with experience in navigating the legal complexities present in divorce proceedings and family law, Ms. Cheltenham has had substantial success in protecting client assets and achieving an appropriate division of a marital estate. In addition, Ms. Cheltenham is a tenacious advocate in custody and parenting-time issues. She has had great success in returning custodial rights for parents who have had custody improperly stripped from them. She has had many victories with increasing parenting time and has challenged and won cases where child support was improperly imposed based on false, misleading or inappropriate data.
Ms. Cheltenham is a graduate of Western Michigan University – Thomas M. Cooley Law School where she attended as a single mother of two young children. While attending law school she received several honor awards including awards in Family Violence Practice, Alternative Dispute Resolution and Pre-Trial Skills. She was also a senior editor for Law Review and received the John D. Voelker Award which is presented to the Senior Associate Editor who made the most significant contributions to publication of the Law Review. During her law school career, she interned for the Michigan Attorney General’s Office – Appellate Division for two terms and was invited to return as an employee, however, she chose to pursue her passion in family law instead.
Prior to law school Ms. Cheltenham obtained her bachelor’s degree in business administration in three years from Northwood University, finishing her degree a year early by taking express classes and weekend courses while she worked full-time as a single mother.
Ms. Cheltenham is a member of the National Association for Career Women the Women’s Lawyer’s Association of Michigan, Ingham County Bar Association Young Lawyers Section and Family Law Section. She has been a volunteer for Red Cross and the Capital City Humane Society. She volunteers her time each month during the fall and winter educating women in a public workshop called Second Saturday where she presents educational information and answers questions.
Professional Associations
Women Lawyers Association of Michigan – Mid-Michigan
Ingham County Bar Association – Young Lawyers Section
Ingham County Bar Association – Family Law Section
National Association of Career Women
Tri-County Family Law Association
State Bar of Michigan
Speaking Engagements & Voluntary Education
Second Saturday: 2013 – Present
National Association for Career Women: Sexual Harassment in the Workplace – 2016
Education
B.A., Northwood University, 2004
J.D., Western Michigan University – Thomas M. Cooley Law School, 2013
Admissions
Michigan, 2014