I never wanted to be a divorce lawyer. I mean no offense to my friends and others, who are. There are a lot of divorces, and, consequently, there is a need for divorce lawyers. I have seen and admired many outstanding divorce lawyers.
Becoming a divorce lawyer was never an issue for me. I graduated from law school, passed the Bar exam, and attended another year of post-J.D. law studies where I studied ocean and coastal law. Thanks to one of my professors, the legendary Commander Hughes, I thought I might want to be an admiralty lawyer. I even became a Proctor in Admiralty.
When I was in the Master of Laws program, I worked at a firm that did admiralty and aviation law. But sometimes life just happens to us, and while playing softball in a lawyer league for my wife’s large law firm, I was introduced to someone from another law firm, who recruited me to his firm, and the rest is history. I never really had to look for a job. And it was a good job! And yes, I know, once again I have my wife to thank for that!
I became a medical malpractice and insurance defense attorney and eventually evolved into a business litigation and business law attorney and was never in jeopardy of becoming a divorce attorney. My career progressed quite nicely and over the past 20 years or so I became almost exclusively a complex business litigation and business law attorney. I have handled a very broad range of business litigation cases, however, over the past 10-15 years much of my litigation has been related to theft of business assets or business investments in one manner or another. And, trust me, there is an almost endless variety of theft. I intend to write further on theft of business assets and investments in the near future, but for now I will go no further.
Then a funny thing happened, about 6-8 years ago some divorce lawyers began seeking our assistance in their divorce cases, or in related cases. This happened because one or both divorcing parties owned one or more businesses and there were issues related to the ownership of the businesses and the assets of the businesses. This has continued to happen very regularly since.
One of these situations required the filing of a shareholder derivative action. Two Chinese-born people had a son and daughter and moved to the U.S. At some point the assets of a manufacturing business in Flagler County were purchased. The ownership appeared to be 50/50 between the father and the daughter, although the father disputed this. Around the time of the divorce, assets from the business, which had been abruptly closed at the insistence of the father, began disappearing. Not so coincidentally, the son then started another business which was virtually identical to the family business, although the father and son denied they had taken the assets of the family business. If they had been successful, the mother and daughter would have lost much, if not all, of the value of the family business. We prevailed and between the damages, prejudgment interest, costs, and fees, approximately $3,000,000 in combined value was recovered for the family business and the daughter. It is a little more complicated than this, and a prior blog piece was written on the case, which you can read, but you get the gist of it.
We have also assisted, or are assisting, by further example, in cases where: 1) the wife was making claim to the business assets of a business started by the husband after the divorce began; 2) the wife claims the husband is the owner of the business where he works (and he denies it); 3) the wife worked in the husband’s business and allegedly stole hundreds of thousands of dollars during, or around, the time when he was facing serious health issues and was in a diminished physical capacity; 4) the wife claimed that the husband transferred ownership in a business he owned to a long-time co-owner for less than fair value; and 5) the parents of the wife, and the husband, were in business together and wanted assistance with transfer of ownership by the wife and her parents to the husband. There are certainly other types of situations involving business ownership or assets in which our expertise in this area can be useful.
We realize that adding another law firm to the expense ledger is not something which everyone can afford, or justify, but when the stakes are high enough, and the expertise is needed, we are happy to assist. I have very much enjoyed my collaborations with the divorce lawyers with whom I have worked. And I am also enjoying learning the law and procedural rules, which apply to divorce cases. I still do not plan to become a divorce attorney, but I look forward to collaborating with divorce attorneys in the future for the mutual benefit of our clients. This just shows, once again, that even when you think you want nothing to do with something, you should keep an open mind!