The Rich Person`sGuide to Divorce

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The Rich
Person'sGuide
to Divorce
By Randall Lane
I
88 WORTH NOVEMBER
2002
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R FINDA SHORTAGEOF PEOPLEWilLING TO WAX
've,whether Shakespeareand his love sonnetsor your
ed teenagedaughter.But if you want storiesabout what
:ppenswhen the love stops, you'll haveto find someone
ald Schiller. Basedin Chicago, Schiller is the 59-year-old
ner in Schiller, DuCanto, and Fleck, the largestdivorcectice in the country. There, 32 attorneys do nothing but
volving the rich andbrokenhearted.
Schiller is a serious-looking man, with a thin face and a high
forehead. His office looks out onto the Daley Center and Lake
Michigan. Ask him about his most instructive case, and he'll
breathe deeply and launch into the story about an old client, a
woman married to a successful entrepreneur. Schiller won't
reveal the names-a common practice in a world where highly
private personal details are tossedaround negotiating ,tablesand
courtrooms ascasuallyasusedFrisbees-so we'll call them Mr. &
Mrs. Illinois. Mr. Illinois wasdetermined to keepasmuch money
aspossiblefrom his wife of12 years.This didn't sit too well with
Mrs. Illinois, who knew agood amount about his business.
So the war began.During a temporary alimony hearing, Mrs.
Illinois made someallegationsabout how her husbandusedkickbacks to gain business from federally regulated financial institutions and buried them as expenses. He called her a liar. And the
Feds took note of it all: Mr. Illinois was indicted and then convicted. The valuable business that the wife had so zealously battled for was now virtually worthless. He went to jail; she wound
up with almost nothing. It was kind oflike a dark "Gift of the
Magi," but while O. Henry's story wasa study in irony and love,
the Illinois case is a lesson in something far more brass tacks: the
tremendous stakes that come with the mix of divorce and money.
For America's wealthy, divorce is a surprisingly rare occurrence; multimillionaires have a divorce rate that's less than onethird the national average, according to an informal survey by
Worth of the nation's leading divorce attorneys. When it happens, however, businesses and fortunes hang in the balance.
"Divorce is the businessman's biggest deal, yet
he acts like a 16-year-old kid," says Raoul Felder,
the well-known New York City divorce lawyer
who recently negotiated Rudolph Giuliani's
$6.8 million settlement.
Big money is in play. In Connecticut, Jack
Welch squires around his new paramour while
his wife, Jane, seeks a $450 million settlement.
In early September, when Jack canceled their
joint credit cards and didn't come up with the
more than $120,000 a month in lifestyle costs
that Jane said she was accustomed to (he forked
over only $35,000 a month), Jane fired back.
She filed a slew of documents outlining confi-
....
dential details of Welch's lucrative lifetime post-retirement
benefits from GE, suchasthe use of a Boeing 737businessjet, expenses
for their palatial apartment in the Trump Hotel and Tower including property taxes, furnishings, a cook, and a wait staff, and
prime seats for everything from the Metropolitan Opera to the
New York Knicks and Yankees. In the current corporate climate,
the revelations proved highly embarrassing to Welch and, perhaps more importantly, to GE. As we'll see later, intentionally
putting pressure on the corporate employer of a recalcitrant
spousecanprove a higWy effective tactic. A callfrom a chairman
of the board asking a spouse to do whatever it takes to put a halt to
public revelations that could hurt the corporate stock is often
enough to squeeze out a highly favorable settlement for one side.
The Welch case is hardly unique. Just scan the newspapers
right now, from coast to coast, for more examples of high-stakes
divorce. In California, Kirk Kerkorian's tennis pro ex-wife is
suing the billionaire for $320,000 a month in child support.
Down in Florida, NASCAR racing starJeff Gordon facesaccusations from wife Brooke's legal team that he's hiding $5 million in
earnings. The nuptial nightmares of Tom and Nicole, Angelina
and Billy Bob, J. Lo and Chris, and seemingly the rest of Hollywood are covered in the tabloid magazines the same way the NFL
season is covered in sports magazines.
Indeed, big-stakes divorces are often fought as contentiously as
a contact sport. On one side are the favorites: They have the
resources; they are the moneyed spouses-or the "in" spouses, in
divorce lawyer jargon-and
protect their territory as best they
can. The underdogs are known as the "out" spouses. The ones on
this side are weaker on paper but often bring desperation and a
willingness to use any weapon in their arsenals. The out spouses
tenaciously scrape for as much territory as possible.
Two major factors can change a contentious divorce before it
starts. First, a prenuptial agreement is almost always a good idea
for people with significant assets or even those in line to inherit
them (see "Sign This, Will Ya, Honey," page 95). It frames a
divorce and usually limits how much can be contested. Second,
when children and custody are involved, a vicious divorce is a losing proposition for both sides. Divorcing parties who don't take
steps to separate custody issues from the fight for marital assets
will not only scar their children forever but will ignite so much
emotion that one spouse, or both, is likely to continue to fight
regardless of economic interests.
Big-stakes
divorce
casesareoften
foughtascontentiously
asa contactsport.
I
90 WORTH NOVEMBER
2002
Still, Worth's survey shows that among people getting divorced who are worth more than $5 million, more than 80 percent settle custody issues but continue to battle over money. And
only 20 percent of the rich get prenuptial agreements when marrying for the first time-a sure sign that when these marriages
dissolve, legal skirmishes will ensue. So the divorce wars go on.
Worth, therefore, has decided to look into the most valuable
playbooks from both sides of the trenches. We cross-examined
dozens of the country's best, most expensive divorce lawyers to
garner definitive strategies for both the in and the out spouse (see
"The Top 10 Divorce Lawyers," page 92). Perhaps the most valuable lesson we have learned is this: If you care about the financial
outcome of a divorce, your best move is to find and consult the
best divorce attorney (or attorneys-more on that later) you can,
by yourself and in confidence, long before you actually plan to
file. At least six months to a year will allow you to maximize your
chance of winning a good settlement. The same strategy is true if
you think that your spouse wants a divorce and you don't. As Mr.
and Mrs. Illinois found out, divorce is a game you don't want to
lose.
=Jdf and
Brooke Gordon
Married:1994 Divorced:2002 Attorneys:Donald Sasser
(his); Jeffrey Fisher (hers) The Stakes: The former Miss
Winston is seeking half of an estimated $50 million
fromthe NASCARsuperstar.She filedfordivorcein
March, alleging marital misconduct. Since then, he's
had the worst season of his career.
'
TheCourtGambit
IN: Try to stay out of court. When divorce cases ¥e in settlement
negotiations, the financial aspects are virtually indistinguishable
from a business negotiation over merger terms. You have lawyers.
They bicker with the other side's lawyers. You say yes or no to
each position movement and, ultimately, retain control over
whether you want to consummate any given deal.
In a court, however, it's the judge who has control. "It's like
going to a roulette wheel in Vegas," say Edward Winer, Minnesota's top divorce barrister. Lynne Gold-Bikin, who practices in
Philadelphia, adds, "In court, you shoot craps." Every divorce
lawyer has seen random outcomes when a judge is all powerful.
"No lawyer can tell a client what a judge will do," Winer says.
The scary secret is that when it comes to valuing businesses or
assets, most judges are fairly clueless. Here's the classic training
for a family court judge: years as a public defender or a state prosecutor or perhaps years in the private sector working with lowerincome clients. Noble enough, but do you really want this kind of
person ruling absolutely on your cash-flow fluctuations, onetime charges, or real estate tax liabilities and how they affect the
value of your business or assets?
OUT: "Peace through strength" is not just a Pentagon mantra.
More than 95 percent of people involved in divorce cases settle
without going to trial, according to our survey. But few of that
large majority can expect to walk away with any kind of favorable
out-of-court settlement without making clear their willingness to
fight. "To settle, you have to prepare for litigation," Gold-Bikin
says. Without this threat, an out spouse can get steamrolled.
Thus, the first move of any offense-minded out spouse is to
make sure, either by settlement or by court order, that legal fees
are free-flowing. The request, called a fee application, is generally
fairly easy: Unlike Disney v. the Corner T-Shirt Shop, in divorce
)) Nicole Kidman
and Tom Cruise
Married: 1990 Divorced: 2001
Attorneys: Sorrell Trope (hers);
Dennis Wasser (his) The
Stakes: $150 million The Settlement: She got the California
and Sydney homes; he got the
Colorado estate and three
planes. Other undisclosed
payouts were probably much
lower than they would have
been if Tom hadn't walked out
before the lO-year mark.
Married: 1996 Divorced:
2000 Attorneys: Jeffrey
Fisher (hers); Mark Luttier (his) The Stakes:
$650 million The Settlement: She received $16
million, plus jewelry, art,
furniture. and $22,000 a
month in child support.
The oil baron agreed to
settle after his wife's
lawyer asked the court
to unseal a file that he
wished to keep private.
NOVEMBER
2002
I WORTH91
The Top 10 Divorce Lawyers
CALIFORNIA
Stephan Kolodny, Kolodny & Anteau, 310-271-5533. Philosophy: "Other than in a custody case, my job is to get you what
you want by whatever legal means I can."
Neal Hersh, Hersh. Mannis & Bogen. 310-7861910. Background: 26 years' representing
dozens of Hollywood stars.
CONNECTICUT
Jeffrey Fisher
Arnold Rutkin, Rutkin & Oldham, 203-2277301. Famous case: achieved an eight-figure
settlement for Lorna Wendt, former wife of
then GE executive Gary Wendt.
cases, the courts are loath to let the richer party bleed the poorer
one to death with legal fees. If there's a large gap in financial
resources, the in spouse must cover both. Take the Kerkorian
case. Lisa Bonder Kerkorian has a net worth in the $11million
range, not shabby but grossly less than her ex-husband's estimated
$7 billion. So after the wife retained Stephen Kolodny, perhaps
the best-regarded divorce attorney in California, he promptly
went to court and won a $225,000 payment from the casino magnate. Now Kerkorian gets to pay the man who is publicly and
legally flaying him, and more may be coming: At press time,
Kolodny was back in court looking for another $800,000.
In most cases, this simple stroke shifts the advantage tremendously. A long court battle now hurts the rich spouses far more,
since they're on the line for both sets oflawyers. (Kerkorian's
massive wealth, however, may make him immune.) Time-in the
form of endless motions, stall tactics, and the like-is now on
your side. This fact alone often yields a fair settlement offer.
FLORIDA
Jeffrey Fisher, Fisher & Bendeck, 561-832-1005.
Background: pit bull former prosecutor who
tends to represent the less-moneyed spouse.
Donald Schiller
ILLINOIS
Donald Schiller, Schiller, DuCanto, and Fleck.
312-641-5560. Background: former president
of the Illinois Bar Association.
MASSACHUSETTS
Gerald Nissenbaum, Nissenbaum Law Offices,
617-330-9090. Background: former president
of the American Academy of Matrimonial
Lawyers.
Gerry Nissenbaum
MINNESOTA
Edward Winer, Moss & Barnett, 612-347-0300.
Philosophy: "Ifwe can minimize the emotion.
the probability of a successful and earlier
settlement is dramatically increased."
Edward Winer
NEWYORK
Raoul Felder, sole practitioner, 212-832-3939,
the best-known divorce lawyer in the United
States. Philosophy: "Tryto stay away from
lawyers, and try to resolve it yourself."
PENNSYLVANIA
Raoul Felder
LynneGold-Bikin, Wolf,Block. Schorr, and
Solis-Cohen, 610-278-1500. Philosophy: "It's
cheaper to keep her. Short of that. it's cheaper
to settle, but to settle you need to prepare
for litigation."
TEXAS
Lindsey Short, Short & Jenkins, 713-626-0208. Philosophy:
"The biggest mistake is taking a case and asking, How am I
going to settle? The biggest question should be,
How do I prepare for trial?"
92WORTHI NOVEMBER
2002
ForumShopping
IN: If going to court is a gamble, then you may as well try to
increase your odds by picking the right casino. Our federal system has created 50 separate divorce venues, and the differences
among them are extraordinary. In New York, inheritances and
prenup protections are almost ironclad. In neighboring Connecticut, inheritances can be thrown into the pot, and prenups
are vulnerable. In Wisconsin, there's community property: Marital assets are automatically divided. In Minnesota, equitable distribution means the judge decides what's fair. In Florida, there's a
hybrid: equitable distribution with a presumption of a 50-50 split.
Then there's Texas, a state made for the in spouse. Alimony
barely exists (an exception, passed four years ago for marriages of
10-plus years, allows a spouse with no assets or skills to receive up
to three years' alimony, with a $30,000-a-year cap). It's the only
state that will allow a binding jury trial in determining the value
of assets or whether an asset is marital or nonmarital. Unlike in
many states, the earner's reputation and earning potential are not
treated as marital assets. Plus, it takes only six months of residency
to gain standing. That residency is generously interpreted, as was
the case for someone we'll call the Manhattan Cowboy. The
Cowboy was an executive at an oil company in New York City
who agreed to a transfer to Houston. He sent his wife down early
to buy a house. Six months later, he was still in New York but
retained Lindsey Short, current president of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, who promptly filed for divorce in
Texas. He was granted jurisdiction, even though he had never
moved. "It's not an everyday occurrence," Short says, "but it's
not an isolated incident either."
People can even forum shop within a state. In New York, an
equitable-distribution
state, Raoul Felder finds that upstate
courts tend to think that one-third of the pie is fair for an out
spouse, whereas in New York City, most judges are inclined to
see things 50-50. In the case of someone with an apartment and a
country house, Felder will swing the case accordingly, with one
caveat: "Upstate, they're not as forgiving of dalliances."
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Once you've picked your forum, you can make the climate even
more inhospitable, particularly in smaller regions: Welcome to
"lawyer circling." Once you meet with a lawyer, he or she is forbidden from representing the other side, even if you decide not to
retain that lawyer. Thus, many a moneyed spouse, realizing that
divorce is on the horizon, will "interview" every good attorney
in town; he or she may even put several on a modest "consulting
fee." Felder says that "SOpercent of the big New York cases cross
my desk one way or another." Once he or she actually files for
divorce, the out spouse is left with slim pickings among the best
attorneys. Felder recalls one client, a Hollywood star we'll call Baha
Man, who filed for divorce in the Bahamas. Felder determined
that there were only seven divorce lawyers in Nassau and had Baha
Man meet with six before filing (the seventh was out fishing).
His wife had little choice as to who was going to represent her.
OUT: The same venue rules apply, and sometimes they can be
turned on their head. An out spouse can initiate a divorce action
as easily as an in spouse, so forum shopping is a two-way street.
California is a community-property state, which generally splits
marital assets 50-50, but it is also the anti-Texas: It has no limits
on anything-alimony,
palimony, or child support-and
can
make a person's future earnings power a marital asset. "This is
where all the action is," California attorney Kolodny says. Equitable distribution often proves a crap shoot for both sides, but
some states tilt the scales a bit. In Minnesota, for instance, if the
results of a divorce would create "undue hardship" on one
spouse, up to half of the in spouse's nonmarital assets, including
inheritances, gifts, and premarriage assets, can be awarded to the
out spouse, completely at the discretion of the judge.
TheValuationGame
IN: As anyone who has tried to purchase a business or investment
property knows, valuing an asset is as much art as science. Just as
the increasingly complex holdings of wealthy Americans make
discovery a warlike process, it also creates headaches when trying to value marital assets. How much is a partnership in a real
estate tax shelter or some promised future stock grant really
worth right now? "The days of dividing up the stock portfolio
are over," Short says. "You need reservoir engineers, real estate
engineers, forensic accountants, certified valuators." You'll
know you've found a good divorce lawyer if he or she carries a
Rolodex of expert appraisers-some
who tend to value highly,
others who see the world conservatively-and
knows whom to
deploy when. Of course, if the out spouse follows the same strategy, these cases tend to turn into battles of dueling exper!S, leaving ajudge to decide. To avoid this, many couples agree to use a
neutral appraiser. For the in spouse, this is a bit dangerous,
because judges generally defer to the neutral party; thus, as during a trial, you're giving up control. The risk can be turned into
an advantage if your lawyer engages in some preliminary investigation. Take the case of a manufacturing entrepreneur in St.
Paul. A neutral expert was already in play when attorney Edward
Winer took over as the entrepreneur's counsel. Winer did some
homework: His firm hired its own expert to value the company.
Winer's expert came back with a valuation of $1.75 million.
When the neutral expert came back with a $1.1million valuation,
Winer quickly reached an agreement.
OUT: Lawrence Cummings ran a chain of Tampa-area nursing
homes. Sixty days before his divorce, he had written a memo
about how much his business could be sold for, pegging it at
around $11million. Unbeknownst to him, his wife, Susan, had a
copy. That came back to haunt him during their divorce, when he
claimed that his company was worth about $250,000. Susan
Cummings's lawyer, Jeffrey Fisher, then pressed his advantage by
hiring Ernst & Young to back up the original memo. "Every piece
of paper that predates the divorce is worth 10 times any piece of
paper created after it," Fisher says. "And if your expert is consistent with the predivorce record, it's very compelling." The document-expert combo worked. In fact, maybe it worked too well.
The judge valued the business at $11million and ordered the husband to pay his wife more than $6 million. Lawrence Cummings
filed for bankruptcy to avoid paying his wife, and the two have
spent the past six years fighting in appeals courts.
ThePaperTrail
IN: When dealing with complicated and/or myriad holdings,
knowledge is power. Thus, most big-money divorce cases turn, in
large part, on the discovery process. The classic defensive maneuver among shady tycoons and shadier divorce attorneys is to hide:
hide assets, bury businesses, stash money with the new girlfriend.
All flawed strategies. With so much at stake in big cases and so
many of the classic tricks exposed over the years, a decent lawyer
and a team of accountant bloodhounds will catch on, and a
burned judge will respond with commensurate fury.
Instead, the preferred tactic is just the opposite: Bury the
opposition in paperwork. Asset determinations should be supported by boxes and boxes, even rooms and rooms, of material.
This minimizes the risk of independent appraisal. Show them
everything, and they're more likely simply to agree with your valuations. When the other side faces the prospect of long delays if
they choose to examine every box and appraise every asset, many
are inclined just to accept your figures.
OUT: Perhaps if the Justice Department had hired some divorce
attorneys, it would have sniffed out the current accounting scandals a few years earlier. "I knew about Enron years before other
folks did," divorce lawyer Lindsey Short says with a smile. In
1995, he was representing the husband of a "very, very senior"
Enron corporate officer and requested a cache of deferred compensation documents. He received only about half of them. So
Short sent in the hot tool in divorce litigation, forensic accountants-halfbean
counters, half private investigators.
According to Short, the path for his four green-eyeshaded
bloodhounds started with sniffing around Enron human resources, moved to a compensation committee that controlled
off-the-books plans, delved deeply into the company's lO-Ks
NOVEMBER
2002
I WORTH93
=Patrida Duff and Ron Perelman
Married:1994 Divorced:1998 Attorneys:many, many
(hers); Adria Hillman(his) The Stakes: $6 billionThe
Settlement: After a drawn-out battle, socialite Duff
received at least $30 million.Legal custody of daughter Caleigh was awarded to makeup mogul Perelman
in 20m, with parenting time split equally.
))Lorna and
Gary Wendt
Married:1965 Divorced:
1997 Attorneys:Arnold
Rutkin, Sarah Oldham
(hers); Robert Epstein
(his) The Stakes: $50
million or $98 million,
depending on who's
doing the math The
Settlement: An undisclosed amount, said to
be in the eight figures,
for Lorna Wendt, was
reached after a lengthy
appeals process.
TimingIsEverything
«Rudolph
Giuliant and
Donna Hanover
Married: 1984 Divorced:
2002 Attorneys: Raoul
Felder (his); Helene
Brezinsky (hers) The
Stakes: Rudy is expected
to earn about $8 million
this year, with much more
to come in the future. The
Settlement: $6.8 million,
the apartment, and
$22.000 a month in child
support. Rudy's income
swelled after he filed first.
94 WORTH
I NOVEMBER 2002
and into the sub plans of profit-sharing pensions. Finally, pay
dirt: a $7 million to $9 million off-the-books account. "Two days
before trial, I threatened to subpoena [Enron CEO] Ken Lay to
come down to court and start testifying," Short says. "We threatened to put on the record all these off-book entities." Short had
discovered the exceedingly liberal accounting practices that
would later sink Enron. Within hours, the Enron officer offered
her husband 60 percent of the community property, a settlement
yielding him about $7 million.
If forensic accountants are a discovery rifle for the in spouse,
some out lawyers also employ a discovery shotgun: the possession
order. This is a preemptive strike, allowing the out spouse to take
possession of all financial records. Neal Hersh, one of the best Los
Angeles lawyers, with well-known clients such as Oscar-winner
Halle Berry, has used the shotgun numerous times, including on
behalf of the singer June Pointer and the wife of a real estate
developer we'll call Mr. Malibu. Within minutes of gaining a possession order, Hersh engineers a SWAT-like operation involving
about 10 team members: security, movers, on-site lawyers, and
videographers. The police are notified. This quick response helps
prevent any Arthur Andersen-style document shredding, and it
also helps from a negotiation position. In the Malibu case, by taking all of her husband's business files (she thought some of his
property was being listed in other people's names), Mrs. Malibu
temporarily handcuffed his business. Much as in the case of Mr.
and'Mrs. Illinois, however, playing hardball has repercussions.
Despite the SWAT team tactics, the Malibus reconciled. But one
of his real estate associates later sued Mr. Malibu (and thus, indirectly, Mrs. Malibu), using her public declarations against him.
IN; Wonder why Tom Cruise walked out on Nicole Kidman? The
answer may lie in the calendar. In many states, courts differentiate between short marriages and long ones. In Connecticut, for
example, a 20-year marriage usually carries a lifetime presumption, along with alimony until death or remarriage for the poorer
spouse. In California, where Hollywood's golden couple lived,
that benchmark is 10 years. Cruise walked out nine years and 11
months after their wedding.
In California, the clock on the marriage-and on marital property-stops
at separation. The financial difference between a
short and a long marriage can be staggering. In Cruise's case,
short-marriage alimony would be mandated at a bit less than five
years (half the length of their marriage), while another month
would likely have mandated the lifetime alimony. Timing involves more than length of cohabitation. In California, marital
standard ofliving is also a big deal, and it's usually based on recent
lifestyles. So if you're contemplating divorce, spend less. Presplit spending can be strategic. Don't remodel a house you're sure
to give up, but you might want to pour a lot of money into a new
office you'll surely keep.
OUT:Timing goes both ways too. Stuart Roseman was a Bostonbased Draper Labs engineer making about $80,000 a year when,
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in 1999, he and a friend invented Gamesville.com, a Web site that
offered free online poker and other games at frustratingly slow
speeds so that banner ads could effectively be sold around them.
It was a stupid business model in retrospect, but like many successful dot-commers, Roseman had good timing. He managed to
secure angel financing just as he was about to go under, then venture money, and finally a February 2000 deal with Lycos that
yielded him $72 million in Lycos stock.
Beth Greenberg understood timing too. She was Roseman's
wife, and they were separating when Roseman was just starting
Gamesville. In California, marital property may end at separation, but in Massachusetts it's all in the pot until the divorce is
final. And so, with no way to appraise fairly Roseman's skyrocketing-by-the-month business and a willingness to take a chance,
she decided to wait it out. "We were going to drag this on as long
as we could," says her lawyer, Gerald Nissenbaum. Roseman's
six-figure offer jumped to $3 million as the company appreciated.
Post-Lycos, he wound up giving her $16 million in stock.
Greenberg matched the timing strategy to her home- state and
her husband's financial state, and in doing so she wound up
with a windfall. The same strategy can work in California if applied preseparation.just
as an in spouse such as Cruise might
leave before hitting certain benchmarks, the out spouse might
intentionally remain in a bad marriage for an extra year or two if
it means long-marriage status. "Depending on which side
they're on," Kolodny says, "I tell them they need to get this
filed now, or else stick it out."
ExtraPoints
Most often, the final answers in a contested divorce lie in a settlement that aids both sides. Those who are seeking a compromise
should keep several things in mind. First, it bears repeating that
children should be kept out of the process entirely. Second, let
Uncle Sam pay for as much of your divorce as possible. Alimony
is tax-deductible. In cases in which the two sides have different
tax rates, the in spouse should keep as much cash and other aftertax assets as possible, even if this means paying out a disproportionate amount of alimony.
Do the math: For the moneyed spouse in a 45 percent combined federal and state tax bracket, a $10,000 liquid asset is worth
more than a $15,000 alimony liability (which costs only $8,250
after tax). To the out spouse paying 25 percent in taxes, that
$15,000 in alimony is still worth $11,500 after taxes; that's better
than the $10,000 asset.
Finally, it's essential for both sides to minimize emotion. Virtually every divorce lawyer in America can recall cases in which
one overwrought spouse tried to torture the other by calling the
IRS, the business competition, or the new paramour. The results
are rarely good for either side. Divorce is a miserable experience
that ranks second only to the death of a child in terms of the stress
it induces. But if the only issues remaining on the table revolve
around money, then at its core it's all business.
8
RandallLaneis a contributing editor to Worth.