Divorce Attorney

Bruce sat in my office. He was fifty eight years old and his marriage was coming apart. He had married Maggie in his 20s, not knowing the extent of her family’s assets or the lifestyle she expected him to provide.

He worked hard to provide. Over their 20-something years of marriage, he went from carpenter to general contractor. He hired a crew, built custom homes, and made good money. Yet they spent every penny: private schools, vacations, ski clubs, and summer camps. He never put a dime in a retirement account.

Whenever there was a bill he couldn’t pay, Maggie found the money. A check from the family trust came through. He didn’t think much of it. But now he was in my office and we were six months into his divorce and everything was taking twice as long as we expected.

We were having a helluva of a fight getting the trust documents. And it mattered. Depending on what the documents said, and how Maggie was using the money from the trust, Bruce may be entitled to a payment. After all, he had spent every cent he made on the family for more than twenty years.

The specific legal issue was whether the trust was divisible. To determine this, we had to explore the extent to which the trust account funded the parties’ marital expenses. We needed to know how the trust account was funded, how much the trust had paid into the parties’ personal and joint financial accounts throughout the marriage, and whether any marital assets/personal property items were purchased directly with trust funds.

The trust documents and financial statements showed up. The Friday afternoon document dump, an old tradition. Lawyers,  just like politicians, announce bad news on a Friday, hoping the significance would be lost to a good weekend.

Since mediation was the following Wednesday, I spent the Saturday in my happy place, amidst bankers’ boxes of financial statements.

Turns out there were more bank accounts than LLCs. And some LLCs owned other LLCs. After a search of the Secretary of State’s website, and a few calls on Monday morning, the truth came out. The small trust was actually much larger than Bruce ever knew. Maggie didn’t just own a share of single LLC with one apartment building. She owned shares in a holding company, which owned dozens of LLCs, each owning an apartment building. She was heir to a property empire across the South East.

Needless to say, mediation went very differently.  Within 60 days, Bruce received a “life-changing” amount of money.

From a legal ethics point of view, the case always struck me as odd. I don’t practice in kangaroo courts. My general experience is that opposing counsel tells the truth and does the right thing. I actually like this opposing counsel and we have a good relationship.

Reading the tea leaves, my theory is that Maggie’s family members, who were trustees, kept her and her divorce attorney in the dark about important aspects of the trust. And that’s why we have subpoenas.

Alicia and Gabriel were fun. She was one half of a high-energy French couple, international entrepreneurs who crossed borders with aplomb, leaving a trail of business entities and bank accounts.

It turns out Gabriel’s zest for life and charisma was paired with a tendency to lie. So Alicia was divorcing him. I represented her and it was time to untangle the knot of entities and accounts that supported their jet setting lifestyle.

We were on day three of mediation. I had mapped out another crazy schedule of assets and liabilities.

There six total businesses, three in France, one in Argentina, and two in the United States. Let’s call them businesses, A-F. Of course, the couple was using business A to pay the expenses of business B, while borrowing from business C to repay business A. Each business had different operating agreements (drafted in French, Spanish and English). The operating agreements contained different clauses on related transactions that the couple treated as suggestions. Because of the (extremely) convoluted series of international transfers, some of which violated the companies’ own operating agreements,  the most efficient thing was to simply count assets, liabilities, and stipulate to a number.

On the afternoon of day three of the mediation, we got it done. It felt fair. The court signed the stipulated decree and the property was divided. I was proud of my spreadsheets  and I closed the file.

Two months later, I got the call. Alicia discovered Gabriel had opened a seventh entity in the middle of the divorce and and had diverted assets into the seventh business. He had committed fraud and violated all kinds of laws and court orders.

No one wanted this fight. But I am not one to let my client be taken advantage of. I set myself to the task and petitioned to re-open the divorce and void the property division. The end result was more money for my client, with Gabriel paying my attorney’s fees.

Barbara, age 74, sat in my office for a divorce consultation. She thought of her wedding vows, for better or worse, in sickness or health. She thought of her husband, Rusty, age 78. They’d been married for over 50 years, many of them good ones. But as age took its toll on Rusty; their marriage was no longer a partnership and had turned into a caregiver-patient relationship.

Rusty couldn’t care for himself and wasn’t trying. Their house was unsanitary. He was volatile, prone to outbursts and shouting. At times, it felt unsafe. Barbara was walking on eggshells in her own home. She herself was slowing down. She couldn’t care for him properly. Barbara began seriously considering separation or divorce. He needed to move into assisted living.

My heart broke for both spouses–for Barbara who sacrificed her entire life for her husband, and for Rusty, who was going to lose the love of his life because he took her sacrifices for granted and refused to help himself.

Barbara had a very good understanding of their finances because she had paid the bills throughout the marriage and handled the purchase of their home and vehicles. However, I was a little surprised that Barbara, a retired seamstress, was so proficient in Microsoft Excel. For weeks she’d been sending us these beautifully crafted asset division spreadsheets. It didn’t make sense, until one day, she brought in a friend, Daniel, to our meetings. Barbara explained that Daniel had helped her organize the financial records, real property values, and personal property, into the beautiful spreadsheets.

Throughout my representation, I grew to see the love that Barbara had for Daniel and how Daniel cared for Barbara and took care of her in the same ways that Barbara had cared for Rusty all these years. Although Barbara wouldn’t dare admit it until months after we finalized her divorce, she was learning how to let someone take care of her again.

I was proud to be invited to their wedding just a year later.

Fresh out of law school, I'll never forget the call that came in just after Thanksgiving. Olivia was shaking as she told me what had happened.
‍
She and Benjamin had four children together but were never married. After years of trying to make their relationship work for the kids' sake, Olivia had finally ended things when Benjamin's struggles with bipolar disorder and alcoholism led to a rehab stay. A year later, Benjamin had graduated from his program and they'd established a simple visitation schedule.
‍
Then came that Friday night in November. Benjamin had taken their two oldest children to a college basketball game an hour away. Olivia noticed a crushed water bottle in his car's cupholder when he picked them, but didn’t think anything of it.

At 10:30 p.m., Olivia’s son called her in tears. Benjamin had been drinking vodka from water bottles during the game. He was drunk but drove anyway. After a fight in the car, he'd kicked both children out on the side of the highway and driven away, leaving them stranded in the dark.
‍
That Saturday morning,  Benjamin called Olivia to apologize, full of shame and promising to change.
Olivia was in my office that Monday. We immediately secured an emergency custody order and restraining order. Benjamin voluntarily entered inpatient treatment in Arizona, agreeing not to see the children until he completed the program under supervision.
‍
As of today, Benjamin is sober but must prove his continued sobriety through daily breathalyzer tests during his parenting time. Part of the reason I share this story, so people feel comfortable reaching out to a family lawyer when something like that happens..

If Olivia had allowed Benjamin to convince her it would never happen again, or that he’d get help on his own terms, there’s no telling what could’ve happened. Also, when reviewing custody determinations in situations such as this, a judge will look at what Olivia did to protect the children almost as much as what Alex did to harm the children.