Alina Caratas

About Alina Caratas

Professionals, business owners, and parents work with Alina Caratas when a divorce or custody matter puts significant assets and family relationships at stake. A Dallas family law attorney and former Dallas County prosecutor, she spent more than a decade in the criminal courtroom before turning to family law. Most come to her trying to protect both their financial security and their children through a difficult transition.

Many of her matters involve substantial or hard-to-trace assets. Earlier in her career, Alina was selected for a specialized white-collar crime division, where she prosecuted complex cases involving hidden assets, fraud, and electronic data. That work gives her a practical advantage in divorces where money is hidden or disputed.

She believes the strongest outcomes come from aligning legal strategy with each client’s real priorities. Alina works closely with clients to separate emotion from decision-making and to identify what is realistically achievable under the law. When a case has to be decided in court, her trial experience protects her clients’ interests — and she stays equally focused on avoiding unnecessary conflict and minimizing the disruption to children.

What Sets Her Apart

• More Than a Decade of Trial Experience. Alina served over ten years as a Dallas County prosecutor. She was lead trial counsel in numerous jury trials, including serious felony matters.
• A Financial-Crimes Investigation Background. In a white-collar crime division, she prosecuted complex financial cases and traced concealed assets. That experience helps her clients in divorces that require careful asset tracing.
• Insight Into High-Conflict Family Dynamics. Her work in family violence cases and a mental health specialty court informs difficult custody matters. She understands the dynamics that often drive high-conflict divorce.
• Strategy Aligned With What Matters Most. Alina helps clients define their priorities early, whether children, financial security, or long-term stability. She then builds a realistic strategy around those goals.
• Multilingual Representation. Alina is fluent in Romanian and Macedonian and conversant in Spanish. This helps her connect with clients across different cultural and family backgrounds.

Practice Focus

Alina focuses on divorce and custody matters that carry financial complexity, high conflict, or both.

• High Net Worth Divorce. Alina represents professionals and business owners whose divorces involve substantial, financially complex estates.
• Characterization of Separate and Community Property. She traces and characterizes separate and community property, drawing on her background investigating concealed finances.
• Complex Property. She divides complex, hard-to-value marital property, from investment holdings to business interests.
• Child Custody. Alina represents parents in custody disputes, working to protect children from the conflict around them.
• Modification and Enforcement. She is regularly retained to modify or enforce existing custody and support orders.
• High-Conflict Divorce. Her family-violence and mental-health-court experience informs how she steadies contentious divorces.
• Family Partner Violence and Divorce. She represents clients facing divorce alongside abuse, informed by handling hundreds of these cases in the criminal courtroom.
• Substance Use and Mental Health. She is equipped to handle cases involving illicit substance use and mental health disorders, due to years of her serving as a prosecutor. 

Experience and Credentials

Alina’s family law practice is grounded in years of criminal trial work. As a prosecutor for Dallas County, she handled serious felony matters — including assault, family violence, and homicide — and tried numerous cases before local juries.

She is licensed in Texas and California and admitted to the United States District Court, Northern District. She is a member of the Dallas Bar Association and the California Bar Association. Alina earned her law degree from Southwestern Law School and holds a bachelor’s degree in finance from California State University.

Beyond the Practice

Alina understands that divorce is not only a legal process but a deeply personal transition. As a single mother of two, she has firsthand insight into the emotional, financial, and practical realities her clients face, and she draws on it to help them stay focused on building a stable next chapter. Originally from Romania, Alina immigrated to the United States with her family and grew up in Los Angeles. Away from the office, she enjoys riding motorcycles, hiking, and spending as much time as possible with her daughter and son.