Sorrell Trope, Founder of Trope and Trope, and Family Law Pioneer
By Regan Morris
It was the movies—and their glamorous depiction of attorneys—that first inspired Sorrell Trope to become a lawyer. Perhaps it's not surprising then that he has represented dozens of Hollywood stars—from Cary Grant to Nicole Kidman. LawCrossing speaks with the divorce attorney about his practice over the last 55 years.
When news of Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston's separation hit the press recently, Sorrell Trope's phone rang. For once it wasn't one of the stars seeking legal advice, but a journalist from USA Today asking for a quote on celebrity breakup. Between journalists and the heartbroken, when couples break up in Tinseltown, Mr. Trope's phone is bound to ring.
Mr. Trope's expertise as a divorce lawyer is the stuff of legend in Hollywood, and his client list is many a casting agent's dream.
Mr. Trope, 77, has been helping people untie the knot since 1949, the year he graduated from USC Law School and started his own firm. Mr. Trope eventually brought his brother Eugene into the firm, which now boasts about 30 attorneys, the largest family firm in California, he says.
"From the very, very beginning, I started a practice by myself, and I took in anything I could get business-wise, and it so happened that within the first year, a third of the work—approximately a third—was divorce work, as it was called at that time," he said. Another third was personal injury, and the rest was criminal. Mr. Trope preferred the divorce work.
Divorce cases meant a lot of drama and a lot of time in court. Mr. Trope said he wanted to litigate as much as possible and that divorce cases were the best way to do so at the time. By the second year of his practice, divorce cases made up more than half of his business. Eventually Trope was a pure family law firm, which was rare at that time. Very few attorneys specialized in that field in the 1940s and 1950s.
Mr. Trope said divorce law has changed "dramatically" over the 55 1/2 years of his practice, the biggest change being that California introduced no-fault divorce in 1970. Before 1970, the main focus of a divorce case was establishing who did what to whom. And there wasn't an equal division of community property, so attorneys weren't too concerned with determining the precise value of assets, he said.
"Now, with no fault, you don't have the leverage of somebody did something to someone else," he said. "You'd think that would make it easier, but it didn't. It made it far more complicated, because you're involved in reimbursements and what people owe to each other, and you're involved in determining precise values of assets, and you're involved in determining the value of intangible assets."
Another challenge under the no-fault divorce is establishing the character of a client. And custody disputes have become much more common and bitter, he said.
"Custody has dramatically changed, because the attitude when I started practicing law was the mother got the children and the father got to see them on occasional weekends," he said, adding that the law is now written to encourage joint custody. "So you've got people fighting over who has what time with the children."
Mr. Trope, who was born in Albany, NY, but raised in Los Angeles, represented Cary Grant for 18 years and more recently has represented Kidman, Nicolas Cage, and Rod Steiger. He describes Grant as "a wonderful man."
While Mr. Trope said he has no regrets about his career, he said divorce or family law is not for everyone and that it can be very difficult to handle.
"It's a very emotionally trying kind of practice," he said. "You're dealing with people, nice people, at their worst moments. And not-so-nice people at their even worse moments. It's very, very competitive; the competition among the lawyers, the acrimony between the clients and the lawyers it's very…it's a tough practice."
But if you love trying cases in court, divorce work will get you there—often. And divorce is a lucrative business. Mr. Trope, who has donated millions of dollars to USC Law School over the years and funds scholarships for students, was named as one of the "50 best-compensated lawyers in L.A." by the Los Angeles Business Journal in 2001.
"In family law there are orders to show cause and motions and the trials themselves—and you're in the courtroom constantly," he said.
But these days it would be difficult for an attorney fresh out of law school to hang a shingle in Los Angeles and build a firm as successful as Trope & Trope. It could work in a very small town, he said, but not likely in Los Angeles, because people want specialized attorneys now, and fresh graduates have no expertise. He said it was hard to get clients when he started in June of 1949.
"But I grew up here, went to junior high and high school and law school and college here and I had a lot of friends. I checked around with my friends and their parents and, you know, gradually built up a practice," he said.
Mr. Trope said he knew he wanted to be an attorney as a very young boy because of the way Hollywood portrayed attorneys.
"When I was a little boy, on a Saturday you always went to the movies and you saw a double feature and a cartoon," he said. "And there were some wonderful lawyer movies, and the lawyers were always dressed up and they looked wonderful and they walked in the courtroom, and I mean it was just a fantasy, and I always wanted to be a lawyer."
After using LawCrossingfor a little over a week, I found a great position. Thanks so much. Marc
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