Carla L. Hartley - Ventura, CA

Carla L. Hartley is the founder and managing partner of Hartley Vojtik Law Group, a dual-state family and estate practice serving clients from offices in Ventura, California, and Arlington, Texas. Licensed in both California and Texas, she represents individuals and families in divorce, child custody and support, military family matters, adoption, grandparents’ rights, interstate custody disputes, guardianships and conservatorships, and related family-law work.

A former United States Marine and Signals Intelligence Analyst, Ms. Hartley came to the law the long way. She worked every seat in a law office — receptionist, file clerk, law clerk, research attorney, and litigator — while attending law school full time. She earned her J.D. with High Honors from the Colleges of Law, Ventura Campus, practiced as an associate at a premier family law firm, and opened her own practice in 2009. She has led the firm as managing partner since 2014. After her admission to the State Bar of Texas, she expanded the practice so families whose lives cross the California–Texas line can work with counsel who actually practices in both states.

That two-state design is deliberate. Marriages, custody orders, and military orders often do not stay in one courthouse. Ms. Hartley is particularly known for sophisticated financial issues in divorce, interstate custody disputes under the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act and the Hague Convention, military divorce, grandparents’ rights, adoption, and guardianship and conservatorship matters. Estate planning, wills, trusts, and probate administration for the firm are handled by Partner R. Benjamin Vojtik. The firm’s working standard is simple: do the next right hard thing.

Ms. Hartley served as an adjunct professor at the Colleges of Law, Ventura Campus, from 2014 to 2019, teaching Advanced Legal Writing and Federal Civil Procedure, and as a Judge Pro Tempore in the family law departments of the Ventura Superior Court. She has served on the Board of Directors of the Ventura County Bar Association, as Treasurer and board member of the Ventura County Family Law Bar Association, and as a member of the Family Law Bar Association of Tarrant County, Texas. She also serves on the Alumni Council of the Colleges of Law.

She has been selected to Super Lawyers in Family Law for 2025, 2026, and 2027, after first being named a Rising Star in 2017. Martindale-Hubbell has awarded her its AV Preeminent peer-review rating. She holds a 10.0 rating on Avvo, has been selected as a Lawyer of Distinction, and has been featured in The New York Times and USA Today on multiple occasions. She has also been recognized by Marquis Who’s Who for leadership in family litigation.