The FT report the pandemic has good for the divorce business at the top end of town
It’s boom times for Robert Stephan Cohen, who counts Melinda French Gates and John Paulson’s wife among his clients
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https://www.ft.com/content/16d2bb50-07ef-4b67-ae0f-e908c219d0df
Robert Stephan Cohen was already having a banner year as one of New York’s top divorce lawyers. He represented Melinda French Gates in her split from Bill Gates, one of the planet’s wealthiest people. He was also retained by the wife of John Paulson, the hedge fund manager who made $20bn betting against the housing market before the 2008 financial crisis. Then came Labor Day. The American holiday in early September marks the traditional end of summer.
Many New Yorkers had anticipated this year’s holiday as a time to end their pandemic-induced isolation — and, apparently, also their marriages. Cohen has taken on three or four billion-dollar break-ups since then. “I found that Labor Day was a signal to people who were getting out of seclusion in East Hampton or Mexico or wherever their second houses were,” said Cohen. “It was sort of a turning point for a lot of married couples, and I think they decided then to pull the plug.” Recommended The Art Market Death and divorce drive multimillion-dollar auctions
Now 82, Cohen has for decades proven singularly skilful at helping wealthy New Yorkers pull that plug. He has represented not one but two ex-wives of Donald Trump — Ivana Trump and Marla Maples — as well as former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, shipping heiress Athina Onassis and the actor James Gandolfini, among other boldfaced names. It is surprising, then, that Cohen never much wanted to be a divorce lawyer. “I backed into this,” he confessed. “If anybody had said I was a divorce lawyer, I would have been very unhappy because I didn’t think that was like a good thing to do.” It started with a phone call thirty-odd years ago, when Cohen was a litigator with a growing reputation.
One of New York City’s most august corporate lawyers had a client, Henry Kravis, who was being sued by his ex-wife over their divorce settlement. His firm, Simpson Thacher, did not want to involve itself in such matters, the lawyer explained. Could Cohen help? He obliged, and managed to have the suit dismissed.
The Wall Street Journal wrote of his exploits. “And my phone started to ring and the cases started to come in,” Cohen said. While he has been called a “pit bull”, a “Doberman” and “your worst nightmare,” among other descriptors of extreme litigious ferocity, Cohen was easy-going and genial on a recent afternoon when welcoming a visitor to his Manhattan office. At this point in his career, it seems, the lion need only occasionally roar. “I can do the tough stuff if I need to,” he assured.
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https://www.ft.com/content/16d2bb50-07ef-4b67-ae0f-e908c219d0df
