Celebrity Divorces with Randy Kessler

OVERVIEW

In Episode 8 of the DivorceLawyer.com Podcast, host Rob Roseman sits down with renowned family law attorney Randy Kessler to discuss the complexities of celebrity divorces and the broader nuances of family law. Randy shares behind-the-scenes insights from representing high-profile clients, highlights the importance of confidentiality, and emphasizes how legal advice is just as vital for non-married parents. He concludes with a powerful message: “Be nice.” That, more than fame or wealth, is often the key to smoother legal outcomes in family disputes.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Despite their fame, celebrities seek legal help for the same reasons as anyone else — they need expertise, not fanfare.
• Maintaining attorney-client confidentiality is trickier for celebrities due to involvement of staff, agents, and family members.
• Kessler insists on speaking directly with clients — not just their managers — to ensure trust and legal integrity.
• Clients, especially high-profile ones, often feel a huge sense of relief after finally confiding in someone bound to secrecy.
• Athletes and celebrities are often targeted for relationships due to their status, complicating custody and support issues.
• Even unmarried parents should consult a lawyer for issues like child custody and support — proactive planning helps avoid future conflicts.
• Successful celebrities tend to be highly organized and disciplined — a mindset that also helps them handle legal and financial matters wisely.
• Kindness and cooperation often lead to better legal outcomes, lower costs, and healthier post-separation relationships, especially when kids are involved.

TRANSCRIPT

Rob: All right, welcome to the DivorceLawyer.com Podcast. Today we are lucky to be joined by Randy Kessler. Randy is a nationally recognized divorce attorney and the founder of Kessler & Solomiany, a 30 person law firm based here in Atlanta, Georgia. Randy is also the author of the book Divorce Protect Yourself, Your Kids, and Your Future. Randy has represented everyone from celebrities to CEOs and today he’s going to share what really happens behind the scenes of a divorce. Randy, thank you for being here today.

Randy: Thanks so much for having me, Rob.

Rob: Absolutely. Well, let’s hop right into it. Randy, you’ve worked with a lot of high profile clients. What is something most people don’t understand about celebrity divorces?

Randy: You know, it’s going to sound very cliche. Celebrities are just people too, right? Pets are just people too. And they are. I think the hardest thing for a divorce lawyer is to understand it. And any lawyer, any professional who gets approached by or hired by a high profile person is that they’re coming to you for something you have to offer. They’re not coming to you saying, I’m famous. What can you do for me? You know, if you run into them on the street, it’s a different dynamic, but it’s, really hard. It was hard for me growing up as a lawyer to understand that people hiring me really, they’re coming to me for my expertise, you know, what they do, who they are, is sort of secondary to why they are here. And so, you know, once you cut through that, it’s pretty straightforward. The only other thing that is really, you know, at the top of my list is it’s okay to talk about their craft, right?

Ball players love talking about who’s going to the Super Bowl. It’s not a bad thing. You don’t have to pretend that you’re not interested. They are celebrities. They’re used to talking about their movies, their TV shows, their industry, their sports. So, and you can have fun with it. There’s nothing wrong with saying, Hey, by the way, you know, I’ve represented a lot of Atlanta Falcons and they all know I’m a Saints fan and we have a fun little back and forth on it. there’s nothing wrong with talking about what they do, but that’s pleasure.

Randy: And then the business side is separate. Okay, let’s talk about the family law issues and make sure we focus on that separate apart from the fact that we may have a friendship or a rivalry based on your industry. It’s separate and apart.

Rob: Right. Well, that’s interesting when you’re working with a lawyer, mean, the confidentiality is a part of it, like you say, for everybody. Is there something, is that a piece that’s important for them to feel like this will stay between us? This is private or like you’re saying, are they just regular people too?

Randy: So it’s a really interesting question because confidentiality for a celebrity is very difficult, Number one, of course we’re going to convince them that it’s confidential and I don’t want to lose my bar license by telling somebody, hey, you know what so-and-so just agreed to or you know what so-and-so just told me. But it’s difficult because a lot of times celebrities are used to having staff. You know, I just got off a phone call where we’re preparing an affidavit for a celebrity and they have their manager conveying the facts to us. And is the manager covered by confidentiality? Could…

You know, the court call that person or could the other side subpoena them. We have to be very careful and bring them under our umbrella of attorney-client relationship. So the hard thing sometimes is to talk to the person themselves. I get so many calls from clients, from athletes, mothers, family members, agents, financial advisors saying, just talk to me about their case. And I do.

But I have to be very careful not to say anything confidential and not to receive anything confidential. I insist that I have a conversation with a celebrity. I cannot represent somebody and never talk to them. I’ve done it without meeting them because they’re in other states and we do it by phone or Zoom. But, know, and I think when I emphasize the fact that I want to talk to them directly, it reminds them that it is going to be confidential. One other point, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had a high profile person, somebody who’s very successful in their craft, tell me, listen, you know, and I’ll kick the parents out and then when we’re alone, they say, listen, I know everyone’s trying to protect me, but I really want to marry her even if we don’t get a prenup or I don’t really care how much child support I pay because the child needs it. And you have all these other people surrounding them trying to protect them from the world, which is a good thing.

And then I have this different relationship, which is what is really important to you. I need to know not what’s important to your manager, your CPA, your bookkeeper, your parents. I want to know what’s important to you. that, you know, once you can cut, that’s a little bit different than the average person who usually comes in by themselves and may have a family member sit in the lobby or poke their head in.

Rob: That’s so interesting you say that because we always talk about how like be careful who you’re getting advice from your family. They might want the best for you, but that might not be what you want or that might be not the relationship with your kids. So that’s an interesting thing where they’re probably trusting you, Randy, more so than like you are my confidant. You are my person.

Randy: It’s amazing to me, and this goes beyond high profile people, I mean it’s amazing to me that somebody who has never met me in their life will come in within 10 minutes, bear their soul and tell me all the things they’ve done wrong and what their wife has done wrong and about their sex life and their drug life. They just met me and I hope they have the trust in me. I hope that’s why they’re hiring me.

And I hope I instill that trust and that confidential nature of our relationship. But it is something that sort of every now and then I look back and say, could I do that? Could I walk into a stranger’s office and tell all those things? obviously we have to know that stuff to be able to defend them, not to use it in court, but to know what are you going to be accused of? And if they accuse you of this, what’s the explanation? Because the last thing I want is for the other side to say, did you know your client did this, this, and this? And for me to have that deer in the headlights look at my face and say, no, I’ve got to ask them. Instead, I’ll say, I knew you were going to accuse her of that. And let me explain to you what happened. That’s the position I want to be in. And that’s how I encourage them to be honest with me so that I can be ready for whatever comes.

Rob: It’s probably like a relief in a lot of ways. Like I’ve been holding this in for so long. Finally, there’s somebody I can spill some of my dark secrets to that I can trust is not going to use it against me.

Randy: But who can’t tell anybody because I know I tell my sister and she promises not to tell anybody, but there’s no legal requirement that my sister or my brother or my family member doesn’t tell somebody. I’ve got a legal requirement that if it’s confidential and I’m told keep it confidential, I will. If it’s something that’s got to be in the pleadings, then obviously it goes out there. yeah, that’s I agree with you. think sometimes when they leave our office, especially after the first meeting, there’s always a sense of relief and it always shocks me. Someone will meet with us, talk about a lot of things, give us a check. And then they walk out and they say, thank you, I feel so much better. And I say, you feel better. You just hired me and you just gave me some money and I’ve got a new interesting case. You know, I, I’m the one that should be feeling better. And instead I feel like I’ve now got a burden. I’ve got the weight of this person’s troubles on my shoulders and they feel like they’ve dumped everything on us and we’re going to help them take care of it. So it’s a sort of interesting reverse dynamic of what you would expect. If you would feel at the end of a first meeting with a lawyer.

Rob: Totally. As somebody who’s gone through divorce and is not a celebrity, can say there’s so much like just build up intention that like that conversation that having somebody like you that has your back, you do leave the office just feeling like this weight off that like, you know, you were just you didn’t even realize you were carrying. So I could see how it’s got to be even heightened for a celebrity or an athlete or somebody like that has got so many just voices in his ear.

Randy: It’s interesting and it’s it’s one of the few joys I have in family laws seeing things that other people don’t see and realizing I’m in a position to help and I think if we do our job well, we really are helping the family. There are lawyers that don’t do their job well; there are lawyers that don’t care, but most of us – most of the lawyers that are good that are respected that you hear about, they want to help families. They’re not trying to make more money by you know stringing a case along. We’ve got enough business coming in that if we solve your case I feel better about it.

You feel better about it and you tell folks that we did a good job. You we don’t make our money on one case, right? We make it on having a lot of people need us and because we don’t have a client the last 20 years. Divorces are relatively quick. know, some last a year or two, but even that is a short period of time. Some lawyers represent people and they do their estate planning their whole life or they do their contracts for their businesses their whole life. We represent people for a short period of time and usually a very difficult time that everyone wants to move beyond.

Rob: Well, and yeah, like you said, if you’re on a 54 person NFL football team, just the odds are if 50 % of people are getting divorced, there’s probably a few people that are, you know, some teammates that are gonna run into some issues down the road and they could say, oh, hey, who did you use? So yeah, I could see how it’s important and just, they can share their story and their success with people that they confide in.

Randy: Yeah, in particular NFL and NBA folks who are targets, not even just for marriage, but there are a lot of times people want to have babies with athletes. You know, they think that they’re going to be rich or they’re going to be famous or they’re going to be by association. It’s going to enhance their life. And, know, sometimes it does. It usually doesn’t. But yes, those, those guys are, are, and women sometimes too, but mainly the men in the, in the major sports that are making a lot of money.

They get targeted and they turn to have locker room talking. say, you know, I’m in that situation. Who’d you use? that’s fortunately or unfortunately, that’s how we end up with a lot of business from a lot of people on the same team. We’re in the same business, same field, the same sport.

Rob: Do you find when somebody is not married, let’s say they do have a kid with somebody is that also they should they be meeting with a divorce lawyer as well? Is that like a situation where do they have to be married?

Randy: 100%. 100%. That’s exactly what, you know, we call it family law. The word divorce has sort of evolved in our field to sort of mean, you know, everything family law, custody. You know, you can have a custody dispute when you’re not married to the mother or the father. You can have a child support dispute when you’re not married to the other parent of the child. So anything that’s related to children, custody, support, or if you’re about to get married, a prenuptial agreement. You know, there’s a lot of cliches that are applicable, you know, the ounce of prevention.

Better to know what the law is before you get into it. know, if someone says, you know, I’m pregnant with a child of yours, talk to a lawyer, figure out what to do, because we’ll talk to you about how do you make it a legal, legitimate relationship instead of an out of marriage, you know, in the old days, they call that a bastard child. Um, there are things that you should know just so that when the other side goes to a lawyer and says, my lawyer tells me this, you can say, understand because my lawyer told me the same thing, or I think your lawyer is wrong. Um, and the best thing that can happen is for those people who might have all sorts of emotions and feelings and anger and frustration and love to be able to say, listen, we both have good lawyers. Let’s let the lawyers talk and figure out what’s important to each of us. And I’ll talk and I’ll say the mom wants to know, dad, do you want to be involved in the child’s life? That’s what’s most important to her. And dad will say, I want mom’s lawyer to know that’s what’s most important to me. Money’s secondary. Boy, we started off on the right foot if that’s the communication. So yes, talking to a lawyer is always a good first step. The ounce of prevention. Get a little bit of knowledge before you make a mistake.

Rob: Yeah, and that’s when things can get out of hand is when you’re sparring back and forth with the mother or father of the child and you haven’t talked to a lawyer. So it sounds like make that call and you’ll just like, you’ll be able to navigate those conversations a lot more confidently and you’re mitigating your risk too.

Randy: Right, and you’ll have a relationship with the lawyer so that even if nothing happens, and I have folks that come in and hire me and pay me for a consultation and say, I don’t have any children yet, but I might. And when it happens, I wanna have the relationship with you for a couple reasons. I wanna be able to call you.

I also want to make sure that the other side can’t call you. So there are lot of reasons to just do some pre-planning. And the other thing that’s interesting, Rob, to me is these celebrities, artists, musicians, hip hop folks, they’re very disciplined. They’re very organized. They’re talented. But the ones who make it, there’s a lot of talented people. There are a lot of talented athletes that never make it to the NFL or NBA. It’s the people that not only are talented, but have that discipline and the foresight to plan ahead and think about how do they want to establish their career? Who do they need to meet?

Where do they have to be? What are their hours? What’s their nutrition? And they’re all very, very organized and disciplined. And I admire them because they have a lot more discipline than a lot of folks. A more discipline than me with what they eat and how they organize their time, how they work out, whatever it is. Their lives are very choreographed. You don’t get there just by luck. You might get lucky for a minute, but you’re not successful forever just based on luck.

Rob: Yeah, nobody sees all the work that like goes into it. They just see the success and they’re like, they’re living the life. And like you said, the discipline and the, you know, the few that do make it. could see it’s funny when you talk about, know, they talk about like new players coming into the league and they’re very financially unprepared to have all this money. And maybe they do like a seminar or something. I don’t know if you’re doing it, but I think that’d be a really valuable thing. And like, now we’re going to have Randy Kessler come on and talk about if you end up in a situation.

Randy: Do that a lot. I do that for the NFL Players Association, for the NBA Players Association. I’ve spoken to their agents and advisors. I’ve done it for agents where they gather a group of folks and really I give them war stories and horror stories about people that have made a mistake. But that’s another one of those things that really surprised me. I see 17 year old kids, the day they become millionaires or the day that they make this money and they figure out stuff. The ones that are successful, they figure out.

I need to plan for retirement. I need to plan for disability. I’ve got my good agent is telling me and my good financial advisors telling me to start putting money away for my kids college. I mean, I don’t know about you. I didn’t think about retirement plans and life insurance until I was, you know, 30, 40 years old, had a child. You know, who thinks that when you’re 17, 18, they have to figure out life, at least their financial life early on before it’s all gone. You know, you know, when you get money at a young age.

You gave me $5 million when I was 18 years old. I don’t know if I still have it today. Those that make it, they’ve got good people in their ear, good guidance, and they’ve got some good brains and some good sense of discipline.

Rob: If there is a athlete celebrity listening right now that whether they’ve gotten into some issues, is there one piece of advice you would give to them as they’re about to navigate this high profile part of their life where there will be men and women and a lot of flashy distractions?

Randy: Well, aside from talk to a lawyer and understand your rights and all that, yes, in fact, this was the theme of one of my presentations that I was talking about. Two words, be nice. You don’t get custody because you’re rich. You don’t get custody because you’re famous. You don’t get time with your child because you’re successful. You know why you get it? Being nice. Paying me a lot of money to go to court to get you guaranteed time is one way. The easier way?

Be nice as hard as it is. If you feel like you were sucker punched or they took advantage or you don’t like their family, doesn’t matter. If that’s the mother of your child or the father of your child, be nice. Try to get people to do things voluntarily. You’ll save a lot of money on lawyers and it will work out better in the long run. The people that are nice, they get that even though they know the other side is not being nice, is angry, they have a much better time down the road. And what goes around comes around.

Giving them tickets to the games showing up for birthday parties, know sending memorabilia, whatever it is Be nice as hard as it is Be nice to the other side because 90 % of the time Rob we work matters out by negotiation Only in the extreme cases do we have to go to court and have the judge tell everybody what’s gonna happen If you can negotiate a resolution, it’s gonna be more nuanced It’s gonna take into account your birthday your special occasions your religion her religion his religion

Be nice. Two words.

Rob: I like that. That’s a great place to end on. It’s like the stars, they’re just like us. And Randy, this was really informative. I I learned things about celebrity divorces that I had a misconception about them. So thank you for being on divorce lawyer.com podcast today. Let people know how they can connect with you.

Randy: Well, DivorceProtect.com is my book. Or just look me up, Google me, Randy Kessler. I’m around. You can find me, my email’s out there. Send us an email to the office if you need to connect with us. But we’re here to help. And if you need somebody in another state…

I was past chair of the ABA Family Law Section and I love connecting people with good lawyers in other states. We don’t get a referral fee. It’s nothing like that. It’s just I want people that have big issues to handle them through lawyers that are experienced and are happy to do it. Thanks so much for having me.

Rob: Thank you, Randy.

The DivorceLawyer.com Podcast with Rob Roseman, Featuring Randy Kessler, Founding Partner of Kessler & Solomiany, LLC

Contact Information – Find Randy Kessler online here, Kessler & Solomiany, LLC, or on his firm’s DivorceLawyer.com Profile, Kessler & Solomiany, LLC.