Lawyer Laura Wasser reveals why March is the celeb divorce busy-season
Of all of the famous LA lawyers, I think Laura Wasser has always seemed like the coolest. She’s easily the most famous divorce lawyer in the world, with a client list that includes Britney Spears, Heidi Klum, Angelina Jolie, Jessica Simpson, Brian Grazer, Kim Kardashian, Khloe Kardashian, Maria Shriver, Spike Jonze, Gwen Stefani, Jennifer Garner and Mel Gibson’s ex-wife Robyn, and many, many more. She’s got a reputation for being discreet, “cool,” friendly, hip and calm. She tells her clients the hard truths they don’t want to hear, and most of the time they respect her for it. Anyway, Wasser sat down for an excellent profile with Bloomberg News, and I would totally recommend reading the full piece here. But the highlights are pretty excellent too:
Her busy season: She’s working on “45 cases now, many of them divorces. Several will be filed in March, after the Oscars; her clients don’t want to walk the red carpet alone.”
Being called in to tell rich young women about pre-nups: “A lot of times what will happen, particularly with young women, is they don’t want a prenup. They’re in love. This is fantasy time—‘We’re never going to get divorced, and I don’t want anybody, certainly not some old guy in a suit, telling me how it’s going to work out.’ So they bring me in. We have the conversation… I mean, love, honor, and obey—OK, fine, whatever. But the point is the minute you get married in the state of California, every dollar you earn, every page of that novel you write, every painting you paint is communal property. It’s half-owned by your spouse.”
Client complaints: One of Wasser’s wealthiest clients likes to complain that when she has custody of her two kids on the weekend, it’s too much work. “I’m like, ‘That sounds like every weekend to me,’” Wasser says. “‘Also, you have no job.’” She once talked another client out of initiating a custody battle because her ex-husband fed a hamburger to their vegan child. “Vegans, man”—Wasser rolls her eyes. “I’m sorry, but no judge is going to take away custody because you gave the kid In-N-Out.”
The best time to file a celebrity divorce: The best time to file a divorce petition used to be Friday afternoon, she says, because news outlets weren’t paying close attention. Now her only reprieve comes right before a holiday weekend. She files in branch offices when she can (“Santa Barbara is great”), because, she says, their clerks leak fewer documents. She urges clients to tell their spouse that they’re filing for divorce so they don’t find out about it from the news. “The turnaround is so fast,” Wasser says. “I have to tell my clients, ‘OK, the courier is filing it today. OK, he’s in line to file. OK, it’s filed. It will be on TMZ within an hour.’”
Media strategy/divorce strategy: When Wasser has several clients she knows will wind up on the cover of Us Weekly no matter what she does, she submits their cases together, so media attention will be diluted. “I’ll tell my clients, ‘I have someone else, I can’t say who, but you should really wait and file at the same time,’” she says. “Why all the celebrity divorces lately?” USA Today asked in August, pointing to the timing of Gwen Stefani’s breakup with Gavin Rossdale and Jennifer Garner’s split from Ben Affleck. Stefani and Garner are both Wasser’s clients.
After her first marriage ended in divorce, Wasser has chosen to just do “long-term, live-in boyfriends.” She has two sons with two different fathers, and she tells Bloomberg that the custodial arrangements with both men are verbal, nothing on paper. Which is crazy, right? She says: “I don’t want to get married. I don’t like the idea of entering into that contract.” Doing what she does for a living, I can’t blame her. And now I’m obsessed with knowing who will be getting divorced this month now that the Oscar season is over. If Wasser is representing them, they’re probably high-profile and rich. Also: I did not put it together that Stefani and Garner were both represented by Wasser, and that she was using both women to dilute the other’s media carnage.
Photos courtesy of WENN, Getty.
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