This version of the article first appeared on CNBC’s Inside Wealth Newsletter. This is Robert Frank, Net-Worth Investor and Consumer’s weekly guide. Sign up to receive future editions directly in your inbox. Last week, Dan Rottenslech’s law firm was undergoing a rare incident. A woman came to work to seek representatives for her divorce. Like most clients at Rottenstreich, the woman and her husband were wealthy. Unlike most of his clients, their assets came from the code. Her husband set up a crypto company, Rottenstreich said. The assets were held in offshore trusts and crypto wallets. My wife had to help find them. “We need to go back in time, find a transfer to a digital exchange, bring in cryptographic medicine, find a wallet, and figure out what transactions have continued over time.” LLP (RFB+Fisher Potter Hodas, in short). “We do what we do all the time. We follow money.” When it comes to wealthy divorces, it’s harder than ever to follow money. Today’s fate is expanding in size and number, so is complexity. Offshoring, holding companies, highly specialized trusts around the world and exotic jurisdictions have made marital assets almost impossible for everyone except the most sophisticated financial professionals. This is where RFB+Fisher Potter Hodas appears. It was founded in 2023 in New York and the other in Palm Beach, Florida, through the merger of two marriage law companies. The team of 40 lawyers includes former government prosecutors, trial lawyers, commercial litigators, and trust and real estate experts. According to Rottenstraich and partner Jeff Fisher, the goal is to bring modern wealth through divorce laws. “Wealth is completely different from what it is now, and so is the case,” Fisher said. “They are very large and more complicated. There may be a million documents.” The story behind the new law firm and its clients reflects the rapid evolution of wealth over the past 20 years. . One of his founding partners, Fisher prosecuted drug and bank fraud cases in Miami in the early 1980s, starting as a US lawyer assistant for the Southern District of Florida. He later moved to Palm Beach and began a divorce case. Over time, his company, called Fisher & Bendeck, grew to ten lawyers, lifted up by the rising wealth and divorce of the Palm Beach Elite. He said Robert Dirt, the Burger Box Billionaire, named “We’ve Always Promised to be Secrecy,” and Packaging King and Burger Box Billionaire, and Burger Box Billionaire. Handled divorce from “Box Billionaire” Packaging King. The business was good, but his company had problems. His cases were on the rise, but he struggled to recruit the best legal talent to handle the load. Marriage law carried stigmatization of the 1980s and 1990s, but lawyers were seen as nothing more than negotiations for compensation or child support. “We had a lot of demand, but we had no supply,” he said. At the same time, the wealth demographics were changing. From the 1990s to the early 2000s, Palm Beach wealth came primarily from inheritance or stock trading stocks with founders and CEOs. After the 2008 financial crisis, bull markets and asset booms have generated large fortunes in technology, private equity, venture capital and private startups. Wealth has become younger and global, and more and more opaque. The assets of the CEO of a publicly-published company can be cracked and split relatively easily, but he keeps $20 million in GE stock, but she has a Hamptons home and $10 million in Picasso I’ll get it. There is little or no public data from secret hedge funds, PE companies, and private companies. Fisher began thinking about ways to attract more legal talent and expand to better serve a new kind of client. In 2017 he represented Linda McCrow in his divorce from developer Harry McCrow, focusing on the couple’s billion-dollar art collection. Despite the fierce court feud, Fisher had a friendly conversation with Harry’s lawyer, Dan Rottensleich. Rottenstreich represented Georgina Chapman in his divorce from Harvey Weinstein and Caryl Inglanders in a billion-dollar divorce from the Israeli Englishman, a hedge funder. Rottenstreich and Fisher knew many of the same people in their careers, and after the trial ended, they began talking more about their company. “We came up with this concept, we blend businesses together, have an interstate presence and serve clients better,” Fisher said. “I liked that guy and it was seamless,” Rottenstreich said. The business is booming. According to Forbes, the number of billionaires worldwide has reached almost 2,800 over the past decade. More than $30 million worth more than 426,000 people are surged. As Fisher says, “More wealth means more divorce.” At the same time, the number of so-called gray divorces, or divorces involving older couples, has increased. This is driven in part by the highly publicized division of Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates from their spouses. “They were wealthy and took away the stigma of divorce,” Fisher said. “Old wealth said, ‘I have an image of myself to maintain.’ At the Gate and Bezos, it was eroded. ” Fisher said Networth’s divorce in Florida has also been surged due to the migration of wealth during COVID from the Northeast and California. The company recently opened a new office in Miami. But finding the great fortunes today has never been more difficult. In one case, a company led by a founding partner John Farley, who moved to India in 2020, is working on it. Indian-born Sridarvemb, co-founder of cloud software company Zoho, has been engaged in a series of Indian deals, saying his ex-wife has reduced the couple’s wealth (Vembu denies). None of the attorneys involved will comment on the case, but the public court application suggests that private holding companies in the US, Singapore and India with operations from around the world are involved. Trust has become a constant challenge for divorce lawyers. More and more are being created in Nevada and Wyoming, making it almost impossible for a former spouse to collect or gather peers within a particular asset protection trust. “It seems like everyone is using Wyoming now,” Rottenslech said. “There is no doubt that trust is being used to protect assets.” Another case the company is working on includes the nature of social influencers and the internet. Although they cannot disclose their names, Rottenstreich said the company must value its internet business with its cash flow model and growth rate. He said the range could be “between $100 million and $1 billion.” They also try to cherish the online followers of influencers. Because they are often used to generate sales. “A social media account with millions of followers is an asset,” he said. In leading the wealthy global, global life that sails from one country to another, multiple citizenships and homes around the world, the company must also work together in different jurisdictions. Fisher said he works with his ex-wife in the United States, a French billionaire who wanted to maintain custody of his daughter. He had to navigate international law to win a fine against his ex-husband, $700,000 a week, until his daughter was returned. Ultimately, lawyers say the most important thing is to coach your clients throughout the most stressful and emotional life. “The toughest cases are where we work best,” Rottenstreich said. “Because they come to trust us. A lot of psychology comes into it.”
From left to right: Jeffrey Fisher, Zachary Potter, John Farley, Danrottenstraich, Benjamin Hodus, and before: Rottenstraich Farley Bronstein of Fischer Potter Hodus LLP Peter Bronstein.
Courtesy: RFB+ Fisher Potter Hodus
This version of the article first appeared on CNBC’s Inside Wealth Newsletter. This is Robert Frank, Net-Worth Investor and Consumer’s weekly guide. Sign up to receive future editions directly in your inbox.
Last week, Dan Rottenslech’s law firm was undergoing a rare incident.
