Originally from the Coachella Valley, Ms. Codekas received her Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration from the University of Southern California in 1984. She spent a decade working as a financial analyst for Fortune 500 companies and as a production accountant for major motion picture studios before attending law school. In 1998, she graduated from Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego. While completing her legal education, Ms. Codekas served as a judicial intern for the Honorable Judith Haller, Associate Justice of the California Court of Appeal, Fourth Appellate District, Division One and for the Honorable Anthony J. Battaglia, Magistrate Judge (now District Court Judge) for the United States District Court for the Southern District of California.
Following her graduation from law school, Ms. Codekas relocated to Sacramento and opened Codekas Family Law. Ms. Codekas brings her extensive experience in business and negotiation to her practice of family law. In addition to her 20+ years of experience litigating family law cases in the Sacramento County Superior Court, Ms. Codekas has appeared in numerous appellate and writ proceedings in the Third District Court of Appeal.
Born in southern Oregon, Mr. Smith grew up and attended college in Davis, graduating Phi Beta Kappa and with High Honors from the University of California, Davis in 1984, with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English. In 1989, Mr. Smith attended UCD again, this time pursuing his law degree at King Hall, graduating Order of the Coif in 1992.
After law school, Mr. Smith served for two years as the sole law clerk to the Honorable W. Michael Gillette, Associate Justice of the Oregon Supreme Court in Salem, Oregon. Between 1994 and 1997, Mr. Smith practiced civil litigation with Wilke, Fleury, Hoffelt, Gould & Birney LLP in Sacramento before spending a year as a special consultant to the California Court of Appeal, Fourth Appellate District, Division One in San Diego, helping with the court's backlog of civil appeals.
Following a further stint at Wilke Fleury, in 2001 Mr. Smith began his nearly 18 years of service as an attorney for the California Court of Appeal, Third Appellate District in Sacramento. For most of that time, he served as the lead attorney for the Honorable Ronald B. Robie, Associate Justice. During his time with the court, Mr. Smith assisted with the preparation of approximately 500 appellate opinions and supervised the work of over 75 judicial externs. He retired from state service in December 2017 to join Ms. Codekas full-time at Codekas Family Law. Two of his recent appeals resulted in published opinions: Nevai v. Klemunes (2020) 59 Cal.App.5th 108 and Erndt v. Terhorst (2021) 59 Cal.App.5th 898.