THE LAWS OF AT TRACTION
This couple’s secret to a happy marriage? They’re both divorce lawyers and they’ve learned from their clients’ mistakes
IN her early 30s, divorce lawyer Dana Stutman handled cases with messy custody battles and nasty mudslinging, but she was still an oldschool romantic who clung to the idea of a white-picket-fence marriage.
“I wanted a fairy-tale life,” Dana, now 51, tells The Post.
She ended up finding her Prince Charming in an unexpected place: the courtroom. There, she met Michael Stutman, a fellow divorce lawyer 11 years her senior who was working on the opposite side of a bitter case.
They’ve now been married nearly 14 years and have two children together, Julian, 12, and Olivia, 9, plus Michael’s two kids from his second marriage.
“[Divorce cases] draw us closer,” Michael says. “You’re watching this other stuff and you’re kind of looking at each other and saying, ‘I’m glad that’s not us.’ ”
Last June, the couple opened their own firm, Stutman Advocate Stutman & Lichtenstein, LLP in Midtown, together. They handle divorce, custody and prenuptial agreements for high-
profile New Yorkers, but in their own life together, they’re happily married. Working in the field, they say, has given them unique insight into what makes a good marriage.
“We get to pick the brains of some of the best psychologists,” says Michael, who repped former New York Knick Raymond Felton in his divorce.
Michael says one of the biggest causes is conflicting attitudes about having children.
“Sometimes [one partner] misrepresents [his or her] desire, or perhaps lack of desire, to have children,” he says.
It’s an issue the two confronted themselves while dating.
“One day, Dana and I were talking and she said, ‘Look, you’ve already got children and I know that I want kids, and I’m not asking for you to have kids with me, but if you don’t want any more, why don’t you say so right now . . . Let’s not waste any more time,’ ” Michael says.
A week later, he told her he was open to having more kids, and they got engaged.
At the office, they never work on cases together, and for good reason.
“Dana is more knowledgeable and insightful into the personal dynamics. I tend to be blackand-white,” Michael says.
When Michael repped publisher James Fairchild on his high-profile divorce with Whitney St. John in 2014, he says the pair “couldn’t agree on much, and they really couldn’t agree on how to divide their property.”
And so the embittered couple auctioned off their valuables at their Hamptons home and split the sales rather than keep arguing.
“There are some things you need to let go for the greater good,” says Michael.
Refereeing such “War of the Roses”-style fights over possessions is routine for the Stutmans.
And yet, shockingly, the couple — who married in September 2003 at the Essex House in Midtown — say they don’t have a prenup.
“[We’re] old school in [our] view of what a marriage should be,” Michael says.
The key to marital bliss, they say, is to constantly communicate.
“When Dana and I have an argument, one of us will say to the other, ‘What’s this really about?’ It’s code for: ‘Maybe there’s something more to this,’ ” Michael says.
To make time for each other, they don’t allow cellphones or discussions about cases at certain times after work.
The couple also credits their marital happiness to traditional roles — she takes care of the home and kids after school, he’s the primary breadwinner.
Another priority? They check in with each other on a daily basis.
“People don’t stop changing after they get married,” Michael says. “They continue to develop as a person.”
Still, separating their personal and work lives can be a challenge.
“Sometimes we look at each other,” says Dana, “and realize we’ve been . . . with clients way too much [that day]!”