Heather McCabe has spent her career helping families resolve divorce and custody matters without turning them into wars. A certified mediator since 2009, a trained parenting coordinator since 2014, and a credentialed collaborative divorce attorney since 2023, she brings a full set of out-of-court tools to families who want a resolution they helped build rather than one handed down to them.

Heather co-manages McCabe Russell Divorce and Child Custody Lawyers, where she has practiced since 2009. Her work spans divorce planning and negotiation, alimony, asset division, high-conflict and uncontested divorce, prenuptial and postnuptial agreements, domestic partnership agreements, same-sex divorce, protective and peace orders, and related estate planning. She is admitted in Maryland (1997) and the District of Columbia (2010).

Clients working with Heather as a Rockville divorce lawyer often come to her after being told their only option is a courtroom. Her starting question is a different one: what does a workable outcome actually look like for this family, and what is the least destructive path to get there? Sometimes that path is mediation. Sometimes it is a collaborative process, or a negotiated settlement built quietly between counsel. When a case genuinely needs to be tried, she is ready for that too — but she does not treat litigation as the default.

That instinct is grounded in teaching as much as in practice. Before focusing full-time on the firm, Heather taught at Georgetown University Law Center (2006–2009) and American University Washington College of Law (2005–2006), work that sharpened the writing and advocacy skills she now uses to make complicated financial and parenting issues understandable to the people living through them.

As a Rockville family law attorney, Heather also serves as a neutral and as a court-appointed Best Interest Attorney for children, roles that require her to hold multiple perspectives at once. Having seen divorce from both sides of the table, she understands what clients are going through, and describes her job simply: “My clients deserve to be happy and it is my job to help them get there.”

In 2023, Governor Wes Moore appointed Heather to the Trial Court Judicial Nominating Commission for Howard County, where she serves through 2027. She previously served as President of the Maryland LGBTQ Bar Association (2011–2012) and received the President’s Citation for Pro Bono Service in 2011.