Emily M. Cochran-Desantis

Emily is a creative and zealous advocate for families and children in both Ohio and Kentucky. She takes great pride in helping clients navigate the difficult process of divorce. She has extensive experience representing clients ranging from the single parent to professional athletes, handling complicated issues involving subject matter jurisdiction, high net worth marital estates, complex marital/non-marital tracing issues, and a litany of other complex custody/divorce matters.

Emily has over twenty years of experience working in the legal field. Prior to joining Rittgers, Rittgers, & Nakajima, Emily spent five years as a family law attorney at Graydon Law, and five years with Mark A. Ogle Family Law Practice. She also spent two years at the Children's Law Center, Inc. (CLC) where she focused on high conflict child custody cases, education law, and criminal sexual and physical abuse cases involving child victims. While at CLC, she also prepared appellate briefs for various family law attorneys on a contract basis. Every brief returned a decision in favor of the client. She now serves on the Children Law Center board of directors.

Emily considers herself to be a lifetime child advocate. She spent over four years at the Women's Crisis Center, volunteering countless hours offering support, encouragement, and advocacy to survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, and/or human trafficking. She has volunteered for Legal Aid Society of Southwest Ohio as a Guardian ad Litem in dependency, neglect and abuse cases. In 2017, Emily was appointed by Governor Bevin to serve as the Child Advocate representative on the Kentucky Child Support Guidelines Review Commission, an appointment and position she held for over five years.

As the mother of a child with special needs, Emily prides herself in handling complex custody matters involving special needs children, as well as serving as a consultant in collaborative divorce cases where the minor child as Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Emily is also very passionate about special education law as well as Medicaid reform so that Medicaid Waivers are made more accessible to special needs children and their families. She has helped guide many clients and families throughout the (unfortunately) very difficult process of obtaining the appropriate services and accommodations children are entitled to receive under the law.

Emily lives in Northern Kentucky with her husband and their five children. In her spare time, she enjoys family fun days, date nights, and soaking up precious time with all of her "kiddos."