Polina M. Dostalik

With years of experience, Polina has devoted herself to solving her client’s matrimonial and family problems. She believes strongly that the lawyer and client must work as a team so that the client fully understands each step of the process and its significance to the outcome. Polina represents clients in all stages of family and matrimonial law litigation, arbitration, and mediation, including but not limited to: divorce, equitable distribution, alimony, child custody, child support, visitation, paternity, marital agreements, and separation agreements, dissolution of civil unions and domestic partnerships, palimony, post-judgment matters, and domestic violence actions. Polina is also highly proficient in assisting clients negotiate and draft legally sound pre-nuptial, post-nuptial, and cohabitation agreements. From the filing of the Complaint for Divorce through post-judgment issues, she zealously represents her clients with a keen sensitivity to the emotional considerations unique to the family law client. While remaining focused on her client’s goals, Polina is as comfortable in the courtroom as she is at the negotiation table.

Polina also focuses on international and interstate family law. She has served clients in a wide range of cases in signatory countries to the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. Her expertise ranges from crafting enforceable, multi-jurisdictional agreements to managing complex international parental abduction matters, implicating international treaty law and global law enforcement.

Since 2010, Polina has volunteered with the Battered Women’s Legal Advocacy Project, representing victims of domestic violence.

Polina brings her creativity and belief that meticulous preparation is the key to success to both negotiation and litigation. Prior to joining Ziegler, Resnick & Epstein, Polina honed her litigation skills as an associate at Bressler, Amery, and Ross, P.C. While there, Polina practiced in areas of family law, securities, and commercial litigation. Polina’s background in securities and commercial litigation has enriched her success in the family law arena, particularly as to effectively handling complex equitable distribution and business valuation issues.

A magna cum laude graduate of New York Law School, Polina was an Executive Editor of the New York Law School Law Review. The Law Review published her Note entitled Embryo "Adoption"? The Rhetoric, the Law, and the Legal Consequences. As a member of the NYLS Domestic Violence Project, she advocated on behalf of battered women in New York family courts.

Polina received her undergraduate degree with high honors in English and Political Science from Rutgers University.

Polina is fluent in Russian.