An East Coast transplant, by way of Seattle, Ms. Kilmer received her B.A. in Radio and Television/Speech Communications from Indiana University Bloomington before attending Syracuse University to earn her M.B.A. in marketing and M.P.S. in Media Administration from the prestigious S.I. Newhouse School of Communication.
After working for a few years in New York City for companies such as the globe.com, Lycos and AOL, Ms. Kilmer attended law school at Seton Hall University, where she earned her Juris Doctorate. In Seattle, WA, Ms. Kilmer clerked for a district court judge, and then joined the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office as a Deputy District Prosecutor. A few years later, Ms. Kilmer opened her own practice in Colorado with a focus on family law, juvenile law, and criminal law. Ms. Kilmer narrowed her practice to focus on family law, juvenile law and obtained a government contract with the Office of the Child’s Representative as a Guardian ad Litem tasked with representing children in Dependency and Neglect cases.
Today, she is very proud of the work Vario Law Group PLLC and its team advocates for their clients and their families. Ms. Kilmer‘s practice focuses mainly in the areas of family law and juvenile law. These areas represent divorces/dissolution of marriage, legal separations, paternity determinations, child custody and child support, grandparent rights, restraining orders, adoptions, and dependency and neglect cases. Ms. Kilmer has experience in complex divorce cases which may include high asset/financial division, asset dissipation, substance abuse/addiction, spouse/child abuse, domestic violence, termination of parental rights, adoption, and mental health disorders/diseases. Ms. Kilmer is a member of the Colorado Bar Association, Weld County Bar Association, Asian Pacific American Bar Association of Colorado, National Asian Pacific American Bar Association and Washington State Bar Association.
In her spare time, Ms. Kilmer can be found cooking and developing new recipes as part of her creative outlet or just spending time with her friends and family.
Mr. Valenzuela has a wide range of experience spanning more than three decades for children and families. He graduated with his Bachelor of Arts in Religion and Philosophy from Boston University in 1990 and spent 10 years working in various areas of child welfare including supervision of a child welfare unit, investigations, case management, foster care and adoptions before receiving his Juris Doctorate (J.D.) from Boston College Law School in 2003. In his legal career, he has experience in areas ranging from environmental protection, landlord/tenant law, disability benefits law, worker’s compensation, family law, marital litigation law, and criminal defense law. Mr. Valenzuela also spent four years as an Assistant County Attorney prosecuting abuse and neglect cases prior to moving to Colorado.
Since moving to Colorado in 2020, his focus has been working with abused and neglected children as a Guardian ad Litem/Counsel for Youth for Colorado’s Office of Child’s Representatives. Mr. Valenzuela is also a qualified Child Family Investigator (CFI) and works as a Child Legal Representative (CLR). Mr. Valenzuela is fluent in Spanish. He prides himself on his ability to look at enumerable facts and render them down to concise and coherent legal strategy. He is uniquely positioned because of his skill sets and experience, to navigate many of the issues within family law.
Ms. Ponko hails from northern Indiana and served as an Operations Specialist for the United States Navy from October 2009 until her honorable discharge in July 2014. She received a Bachelor of Political Science (BA) from California State University Channel Islands in December 2018. In August 2019, Ms. Ponko began working with the Texas Department of Family Protective Services and served as a qualified Child Protection Conservator until November 2021. In November 2021, Ms. Ponko began with the Weld County Department of Human Services as a Child Protection Caseworker and maintained a senior level certified caseworker status through September of 2025. Ms. Ponko began working as a case consultant in October of 2025 for Vario Law and provides consultation, evaluation, and administrative services.
Ms. Ponko has completed a combined 949+ educational and on-the-job training hours in child protection assessment and on-going work for areas including child development, trauma assessment, conservatorship, domestic violence, substance abuse, and mental health issues. Ms. Ponko has been qualified as an expert in Child Protection Casework for the 19th Judicial District of Colorado.
In her spare time, Ms. Ponko enjoys completing home remodeling projects, exploring new mountain towns and hanging out with her French bulldogs.
