John Crouch has practiced family law since 1995. Until 2024, he was at Crouch & Crouch in Arlington, a family firm that developed its international and inter-state focus by helping military, diplomatic, civil-service, expat and immigrant families throughout Northern Virginia and beyond. He assists lawyers in other states and countries as a consultant, co-counsel, or expert witness on international and interstate family law. But more often, he represents clients in all kinds of family situations — everything that happens before, during, after, or instead-of marriage and divorce.
Having taken every class that William & Mary’s law school offered in wills, trusts, estate planning and related tax issues, he immediately made that part of his practice, starting with divorced people and diplomatic families and their concerns when planning for the future and their children.
Realizing how damaging family litigation can be for clients and children, John got trained in family mediation, and starting in 2002, he worked with Jim Gross to launch the DMV’s first Collaborative Divorce group and trainings. Collaborative Divorce practitioners are family lawyers, financial advisors and mental health professionals who pay attention to what clients are actually experiencing, and work together to improve the process in innovative ways, informed, but not bound, by “how things have always been done.” They are fearless advocates for their clients, but they advocate more effectively by listening to each other, listening to both clients, and working creatively and cooperatively with clients to develop win-win solutions.
Since 2019, John has been the editor of Negotiating and Drafting Marital Agreements, published periodically by Virginia CLE. He has authored many articles in state and national publications for practicing lawyers, and taught in continuing legal education courses. He is a longtime Fellow of the International Academy of Family Lawyers (formerly the International Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers) and the International Academy of Collaborative Professionals. He has led committees and task forces in local and nationwide professional organizations, and represented Arlington and Falls Church on the governing Council of the Virginia State Bar. He graduated from Brown University and the College of William and Mary’s Marshall-Wythe Law School. He lives with his wife and three children in his native Arlington, and is active in church and scouts.
