DIVORCE LAWYER TO THE STARS
Angelina Jolie, Kim Kardashian—celebs know that when it’s time to split, Laura Wasser is the one to call.
As a Hollywood divorce lawyer, Laura Wasser has seen her share of ugliness—including one client who fed laxatives to his ex-wife’s cat so it would soil her pristine white condo. “There have been some thrown water glasses. There was once a stiletto heel that got stuck in our conference room door,” she says. Still, the $Us850-an-hour lawyer says she tries to steer her clients away from fighting dirty. “Mediation makes the most sense in almost every divorce,” she says of her go-to method for dividing assets behind closed doors instead of in court. Now Wasser, 49, divorced herself with two sons (Luke, 12, and Jack, 8), wants to make her expertise accessible via her website itsovereasy.com. “We want to make the legal aspect easier and less expensive. We bank online, shop online, date online—why shouldn’t we divorce online?” Here she shares what she’s learnt about the business of breaking up.
CELEBRITIES LOVE TO RELATE TO THEIR LAWYER
The Los Angeles native joined her father Dennis Wasser’s law firm after law school at Loyola University in Los Angeles. “When I started, I was about 10 years younger than most of my colleagues, and they would send me in to talk to clients because I was young, I was hip, I had a tattoo. I could speak with this athlete or musician or actor, and they could relate to me better than they could to an old guy in a suit.”
HIDE THAT DIRTY LAUNDRY
When the 2006 split between / Britney Spears, one of her first superstar clients, and Kevin Federline turned into a media circus, “that was a big lesson for me,” she says. “Media was booming, and I don’t think anybody could fathom how quickly news would travel.” She developed tricks for keeping details out of the press, including strategic dates for filing ( before holiday weekends) and having clients announce their splits in press releases so they wouldn’t be discovered via public records. “If both parties are willing to do it quietly, sometimes the entire divorce is worked out before we file, which is much less invasive,” she says.
FAME DOESN’T MAKE A BREAK-UP EASY
“There isn’t really a difference” between celebrity and civilian divorces, Wasser says. “I tell all my clients, ‘ You’re going to go through heartache and have the same fears, frustrations and insecurity.’ Everyone’s worried about their kids, worried about money. Wondering who you’re going to the office Christmas party with is the same as wondering who you’re going to the Oscars with. The only difference is the media planning.”
YOU WILL SURVIVE THAT SPLIT
“It’s not fun, but everyone who comes into my office has been touched by divorce, whether they’re a child of divorce or their best friend has gone through it,” she says. Still, she has some clients who find it hard to fully end things, as in the case of Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner, who stayed separated for nearly two years before filing for divorce. “There’s a psychological finality to being fully divorced,” she says of why that happens. “I’ve had clients whose divorce was pretty much finalised and then they got back together.”
KEEP THINGS CIVIL
“I say two things: Remember that this is a business transaction. There is a different place for you to be having emotions. And at some point remember that this is someone you married. Try to tap into those good memories. If you have children with them, you’ll be dealing with them the rest of your life So figure out a way to deal with anger—before it starts making your face look bad.”