Brooke Stephens is a founding partner with Merus Law, APC. Her law practice focuses on the areas of family law, guardianships, adoptions, and grandparents’ rights. Brooke is a graduate of Pepperdine University School of Law and Oregon State University. She is licensed to practice law in both California and Oregon. Brooke has made the Super Lawyers Northern California Rising Stars list for three consecutive years, 2013 through 2015. She has also been named 2018 “10 Best Under 40” in Client Satisfaction by the American Institute of Family Law Attorneys and 2019 Top 10 Family Law Attorneys in California by Attorney and Practice Magazine.
Prior to co-founding Merus Law in 2012, Brooke was an associate with a local law firm for five years where she represented clients in family law and adoption matters, including divorce, paternity actions, child support, spousal support, pre-nuptial agreements, domestic violence restraining orders, name changes, step-parent adoptions, and grandparents’ rights. Brooke previously worked for a civil litigation firm in Portland, Oregon where she participated in a variety of cases from medical malpractice, to eminent domain, to child sexual abuse, and was involved in drafting over thirty claims against the Archdiocese of Portland on behalf of victims abused by priests.
While at Pepperdine University, Brooke served on Moot Court Board and was a representative to the Student Bar Association. She was awarded the Dean’s Merit Scholarship, the Gunnar Nicholson Endowed Scholarship, and was an active member of Advocates for Public Interest Law, and the Christian Legal Society. Following her first year of law school, Brooke participated in a judicial clerkship for the Honorable Donald W. Hull, Seventh Judicial District, State of Oregon. Over the next two years she participated in internships with Woolf Simmonds Solicitors in London, England, and the International Justice Mission in Tegucigalpa, Honduras.
Brooke attended Oregon State University for her undergraduate education, where she graduated summa cum laude from the University Honors College with Bachelor of Arts degrees in both Political Science and International Studies, as well as a minor in Spanish. Brooke wrote her Honors Thesis on the international reconciliation movement, entitled, Reconciliation and Forgiveness: The Promise of Healing for Wounded Nations. Immediately following college, Brooke worked as an AmeriCorps/VISTA volunteer for a non-profit community development corporation.
Brooke currently resides in Rocklin with her husband and their three children. She sits on the Family Law Temporary Judge Attorney Mediator subcommittee of the Placer County Bar Association. Brooke presently serves on the Dean’s Counsel for Pepperdine Caruso School of Law and is President of the Board for Placer Rescue Mission. She is also a member of Daughters of the American Revolution. Most recently, on October 2, 2019, Brooke was sworn in at the United States Supreme Court to become a member of the United States Supreme Court Bar.