Good morning, Broadsheet readers! Bet365 CEO Denise Coates earned a £221 million salary last year, Lily Gladstone became the first indigenous person to win Best Actress at the Golden Globes, and celebrity divorce attorney Laura Wasser wants more divorces to move online. Have a fantastic Tuesday.
– Separation status. Laura Wasser has seen every kind of divorce imaginable. A family law attorney at the Los Angeles firm Wasser, Cooperman & Mandles, she’s known for representing celebrities from Kim Kardashian to Britney Spears in their divorces. Actor Laura Dern played an attorney reportedly inspired by Wasser in the film Marriage Story.
She represents many high-earning women who are the breadwinners in their families, but some dynamics are constant regardless of income. “Divorce is the great equalizer,” Wasser says. “Whether you’re [figuring out if you’re] going to be able to fly private anymore or to take that cross-country road trip with your kid, the issues are the same.The fear and sadness that people have going through this are the same.”
For many people, divorce is the “first, hardest thing” they go through, Wasser says. Divorces peak in January, as people emerge from the holidays, set resolutions, or think ahead to next year’s tax return.
Divorce attorney Laura Wasser handles high-profile celebrity separations—but believes divorce should be easier for the masses. Joanna DeGeneres While Wasser is best-known for her high-profile clients who pay her $1,000-an-hour fee, she’s also a backer of and “chief of divorce evolution” for Divorce.com, a 78-person startup building a platform for people to handle divorces online. For about half of all divorcing couples, the process costs between $20,000 and $40,000; as much as three-quarters of that work is to prepare for a trial that never happens, Wasser says. She believes that divorce—like shopping, dating, and banking—can eventually move online. The only types of cases that aren’t suitable to online legal proceedings are complex matters involving severe acrimony, custody issues across state lines, or domestic abuse, she argues.
Divorce.com is led by co-CEOs Elizabeth Pharo and Elizabeth Stewart. Featheringill Capital acquired the online divorce processor CompleteCase, the divorce.com domain, and Wasser’s previous online divorce platform It’s Over Easy in 2022 to build the online divorce platform. Divorce.com offers mediated divorce services alongside uncontested divorces, which have a longer history taking place online.
Wasser could be accused of cannibalizing her own profession, but she believes that divorce should be less expensive and less complicated for the masses. “There are always going to be high-conflict, high-resolution cases. But plenty of attorneys are taking advantage of people’s fear and lack of knowledge,” she says.
She advises divorcing spouses to mediate and move on. “I see a lot of breadwinners, especially women, resentful that they have to write a check every month. It is what it is,” she advises. “Try not to live in that resentment. Instead of staying in the anger, this is the next chance for you to be who you are.”
Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
@_emmahinchliffe
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