LOUISA DEROSE
Partner
Louisa, who joined Rower LLC as partner in 2019, is no stranger to handling high stress, high conflict, high-stakes situations. Louisa’s first job after graduating cum laude with a BA in psychology from NYU was working with mentally ill inmates at Rikers Island, New York’s largest jail complex. Upon graduating with honors from New York Law School, Louisa then worked as an assistant district attorney at the Queens County District Attorney’s Office handling misdemeanor and felony cases.
Louisa transitioned to family law in 2011 and first practiced at a boutique Manhattan matrimonial firm before joining her family’s law firm, DeRose & Surico, where she also handled real estate matters. While her practice focuses on matrimonial and family law matters, her thorough knowledge of, and experience in, complex transactional real estate law helps Rower’s clients find solutions to the many real estate issues that often crop up in divorce matters.
While Louisa is an experienced litigator, she recognizes that settling cases outside of the courtroom is often in a family’s best interest. To give her clients as many options as possible, Louisa trained as a mediator at the Ackerman Institute for the Family and is also trained in collaborative law. In her practice, she strives to provide clients with a full picture of the issues and options so they may make intelligent and informed decisions. She is as adept at counseling her mediation and collaborative clients as she is at fighting for her clients’ rights in the courtroom. Louisa is a member of The New York Association of Collaborative Professionals, the Queens County Bar Association, and the New York Women’s Bar Association. She is also an adjunct professor at Brooklyn Law School and is currently teaching a course in mediation.
Outside of her professional activities and spending time with her husband and two children, Louisa volunteers every week at a local animal shelter and enjoys cooking, reading fiction and taking long walks with her dogs.
646.437.7749 louisa@rowerllc.com
Lectures
2023 “Divorce Redirected: It Doesn’t Have To Be Contentious” by Leslie Stewart Sullivan, Louisa DeRose, and Sarah Hechtman | WMHC
2020 “Real Estate in Splitsville” | Untied.net
2019 “The Different Roads to Divorce: A Divorce Attorney Explains Mediation as an Alternative to Litigation” | MTZ Counseling, Continuing Education Units
Media
2024, "Adjunct Professors Bring Straight-From-the-Field Experience to Our Spring Curriculum" | Brooklyn Law School
Publications
2024 “Put a Ring On It or Ask for It Back? Conditional Gifts in New York State” by Louisa DeRose and Jamie Caponera | New York Law Journal
2024 “Reviewing Attorneys: The Tightrope Walkers of Mediation” by Louisa DeRose and Sarah Hechtman | New York Law Journal
Videos
The Divorce Process
Louisa explains the uncontested divorce process.