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Monday, May 17, 1999
Profile/ Robert Nachshin
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 t's frustrating, but Robert Nachshin cann't help it if people
choose the wrong mates, or cheat on them because they're bored, or begin
to loathe the spouses they once adored, or lie, trick and obfuscate when
all that's at stake is half their net worth and their emotional
equilibrium. He only knows he tries to make the best of things for his
clients, who come to him for $465 an hour's worth of expertise in how to
end a marriage in Southern California.
He is short, slender and intense, with a beard he grew in December to work against a boyishness that is incompatible with his 48 years. It came in whiter than the pepper and salt shade of his close-cropped hair. His style of dress is Ivy League inoffensive, only slightly enlivened by the patterned Ferragamo ties he favors. Large, almost bulging blue eyes that give him a perpetual look of astonishment are his most distinctive feature. However, after working as a family law specialist in Los Angeles since 1976, very little surprises Nachshin (rhymes with action). Not the husband who schedules a secret office visit to put the attorney on retainer when the man's youngest child is still in grade school, making clear that he'll call to wrap up the divorce right after his son graduates from high school. Not the happily single man who married so he could get divorced, thereby gaining a more desirable dating profile. Not the professional baseball player's ex-wife who goes back to court every time her former husband is awarded a new contract, because while $48,000 a month in spousal support might seem like enough to pay for living expenses, if he's earning more, then she wants her cut, or at least she is warmed by the notion of saddling him with some legal bills. And not the thrice-married movie director who moved back in with the woman he'd recently divorced and their young daughter, apparently unfazed by the fact that, with Nachshin's help, his ex-wife got his child support payments doubled to $12,900 a month. His firm, Nachshin & Weston, bills itself on its Web site as a family law practice focusing on high-net worth, high-profile divorce, child custody, and prenuptial and paternity actions. Clientele, rates and track record place it in a group of about 15 top divorce firms in Los Angeles used to navigating waters in which the financial temperature is elevated and the media can smell the blood that drips from open wounds with the instinct of an undernourished shark. "All my clients are wealthy," Nachshin says. "I would say about 20% are high profile, and in those cases, everything is exaggerated. But contrary to popular opinion, Los Angeles doesn't have a higher percentage of divorces than the rest of the country." Just a greater sensationalism quotient. Nachshin has represented baseball player Bret Saberhagen, TV producer Don Bellisario, the Portland Trail Blazers' Brian Grant, Alana Stewart (Rod's ex), actress Lesley Ann Down in the dissolution of her marriage to director William Friedkin, and Walt Disney International President Robert Iger when he was head of ABC. Clients pay from $5,000 to $900,000 for his help, with $80,000 in fees being the average cost of uncoupling. His most widely reported case was tried in San Mateo County, where a five-year soap opera featuring his client San Francisco Giants superstar Barry Bonds and the woman who accused the athlete of bullying her into giving up a career in cosmetology to marry him drew nearly as much local attention as the concurrent O.J. Simpson trial. It began with Susann Bonds' challenge to a prenuptial agreement signed when Bonds was a promising second-year outfielder with the Pittsburgh Pirates, earning $106,000 a year. (His current contract pays him more than $10 million a season.) She might have won that round, simply because no one could find a copy of the 8-year-old agreement, until Nachshin's investigators located a Pittsburgh attorney who'd represented Bonds in a previous divorce who had a copy. In a ruling last month, the court of appeals deemed the prenup invalid. Nachshin has petitioned for a rehearing. Other highlights of the case included charges of domestic abuse and a paternity suit filed by a porn actress against Bonds while the court was still considering Susann's plea for her and their two children to receive an increase in monthly support from $30,000 to $90,000. Nachshin was relieved, for his client, when the raise wasn't granted. He's familiar with opponents using any means to get whatever they can, and subscribes to such strategy as well, when it's expedient and within the bounds of what he considers ethical. Still, some days, it seems clients would demand that their mates burn in hell for eternity, if such a request were enforceable. "I think most of my clients are very good people," Nachshin says. "I think most people are good people, and I think marriage is strong," says Nachshin, who has been married 20 years. "I'm an optimist, by nature, and I don't think I'm a judgmental person. I used to identify so with my client that I couldn't stand the other party and their lawyer. It was draining. I just grew up over the years, and grew out of that. I like to get a good result for my client, but I don't take the cases so personally anymore. It makes me a better lawyer." Congresswoman's 'Messy' Divorce Nachshin is once again booking space on the Oakland shuttle to take part in a battle local papers have labeled "messy." He represents Democratic Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher, who last month filed for divorce from her computer magnate husband when she discovered evidence of a long-standing affair with an employee. The couple is arguing over custody of their 7-year-old daughter and division of an estate valued at from $18 million to $36 million, depending on who is counting or hiding assets. Because Tauscher will be running for reelection, she has an interest in keeping as much mud off her public image as possible. "The two emotions that people feel in a divorce case are anger and guilt," Nachshin says. "If I'm representing someone, and the other party is feeling guilty because he or she had an affair, we take advantage of that and try to resolve the case on a favorable basis as quickly as possible." Not every divorce is tabloid fodder. Late in March, Nachshin left his Mandeville Canyon home at just after 7 a.m. to meet what he calls a "regular person" in Superior Court downtown. In a sense, the morning's work could be seen as being all about numbers: two 65-year-olds, divorced in 1995 after 25 years together. She took $800,000 in annuities, he took a $1.5-million home on the water in Coronado. He said his income was $108,000. Nachshin uncovered tax documents in which it was reported as $205,000. Her annual income is $75,000. Although no spousal support was asked for or awarded at the time of the split, the man initiated this court appearance by asking that his ex-wife be required to pay him alimony. So much for the figures. This story of a restless, aging peacock suffering from intimations of mortality who moved out one day while his wife was at work versus the woman who had long found him difficult, self-absorbed and a lousy father is a melodrama of greed, hurt, outrage and relief. The time that Nachshin and his 32-year-old associate, Stephanie Blum, spend in front of the judge is brief. After the judge denies the man's request for alimony, the main action occurs in the crowded courthouse hallway. Offers and counteroffers are tendered, beginning with the man's suggestion that he'd accept a $50,000 lump sum to waive his right to ever reopen the agreement. "That's extortion," the wife, a former schoolteacher, says to Blum. "It's never enough with him." Nachshin reminds her that she could end up spending that $50,000 in legal fees just fighting her ex-husband, who could still bring her back to court every year. "I want this to go away," she agrees. "But I'd rather pay you than give any money to him." At the end of a two-hour corridor minuet, the $50,000 cost of walking away for good has been whittled down to $6,000, which she considers a bargain price for closure. Walking her boss across Broadway to the parking lot, Blum cann't contain herself. "We kicked butt!" she says. "I am so happy. She's really a nice lady, and she deserves some peace and quiet." Feeling Like a Gladiator Although some of the young lawyers Nachshin has fired over the years wouldn't characterize him as a champion of the underdog, Nachshin says, "It's more psychologically satisfying to represent the one who doesn't have the money. You feel like a gladiator." Which is more rewarding than feeling like the town shrink the day the Prozac shipment was derailed. He's well acquainted with the catalog of fears that bedevil his clients--I'll be financially ruined, and no woman wants to date a pauper; I'll become a bag lady, I'll lose contact with my children and they'll never forgive me; he'll get off easy because he's hidden money in offshore accounts; she'll skip town with my kids; he'll marry a bimbo who'll be an influence on my children; I'll be alone till I die. When a layer of emotional smog so pollutes the atmosphere in his West Los Angeles office that it's difficult to breathe or think, Nachshin will recommend a client seek psychotherapy. "I'm a good listener, and I have to be a psychologist all the time, but divorce lawyers aren't therapists," he says. "I might say to a client, 'There's so much anger here that it's hard for you to make an objective decision. Do sports, play tennis, get a job, see a therapist, join a health club.' " In short, get a life, because Nachshin has observed that those who get over it do so by getting on with it, a group that might include clients who leave a marriage for a mate-in-waiting. Among his most gratifying cases are those in which he sees someone positively transformed by the crucible of divorce. "A woman who has never had control of the finances, who doesn't know how to balance a checkbook or manage investments, will sometimes learn to handle her own affairs, and she'll become her own person," he says. "These women start out scared, but at the end I see someone who's together, both psychologically and financially. It's great." Arnie Becker, the morally bankrupt divorce lawyer who was such a memorable '80s presence on "L.A. Law," wouldn't have found satisfaction in anything but a big payoff or some equivalent symbol of revenge. Nachshin is aware of the negative image family law attorneys must counter: They're seen as bottom feeders who foment conflict as a way to drive up their fees. When he was first assigned a divorce case as a young lawyer at Loeb & Loeb in L.A., he thought, "I didn't go to Columbia University Law School to do divorce work. The only people who do that are lowlifes." But he discovered he was good at it, liked the contact with clients and opposing counsel, and was able to see people at their worst without losing faith in either gender. "Most people think that men are going to act in a specific way and that women are going to act in a specific way, but it's not true," he says. "It's who cheated, who got left. A woman who's the income earner will act just like the man who is. And a man who's been discarded will probably behave more similar to a woman who's been abandoned than to a man who wasn't." Nachshin hasn't personally experienced the agony of the dumped. He describes his wife, whom he met on his first day of law school, as his best friend. They moved from New York to Los Angeles after graduation. She worked as an entertainment attorney until retiring to raise their two children, now 6 and 3. Photographs of his son and daughter occupy a prominent spot in his office; those reminders of the stable family life he values capture his attention more on days when he deals with disgruntled, miserable people. If clients ask about his marital history, he'll tell them. Some feel he couldn't possibly understand how dramatically love can go into turnaround if he's still with his first wife. It's true that Nachshin hasn't been through a divorce. More like hundreds of them. Mimi Avins can be reached by e-mail at mimi.avins@latimes.com.
Copyright 1999 Los Angeles Times. All Rights Reserved
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