Raoul Felder: A Chat

In the course of writing a story about divorce lawyers for a certain fancy magazine, I am compelled to call Raoul Felder. I am not looking forward to it: Felder is a predictable publicity hound, and every other prominent divorce lawyer I've spoken to has been dismissive of him. One or two people have said that his wife, also a divorce lawyer, is respectable and smart, but is lost in the shadows of her clownish husband.

Still, my editor thinks Felder ought to be in my story. So I call up, and get right through to Raoul himself. I tell him what I'm doing. He launches. Biggest divorce practice in the country, he asserts. By what measure? Any measure, he says: Most attorneys in firm devoted to nothing but divorce (nine), most cases, etc.

I ask if he does a lot of high-asset work. Yes, he says, but that's not all. “People don't realize” that his firm also does work for police detectives. He's also just finished the latest Elizabeth Taylor divorce, on the husband's side, I guess. Also the Anthony Quinn case.

I ask about his wife. She does appeals work, he confirms. “Technical,” he says. I try for details — a case she's been on. He names Quinn. Is that on appeal? No, he says, she does “the law work” which would be used both in the appeal and in the trial itself. “I don't know why anyone would bother to appeal,” he adds.

Then, apropos of nothing, he says: “This business is noted for jealousy.” And he proceeds to slag all other divorce lawyers as uniformly jealous of him. He says he's jealous of Norman Mailer, Frank Sinatra, and someone else who's name I didn't get down. This is almost exactly what New York magazine paraphrases him as saying in its 1995 best lawyers roundup. Obviously a rehearsed line.

I reply that, in fact, other lawyers have knocked him in conversation with me, that they have suggested that he really doesn't do trial work, just talk shows. “I'm looking at my calendar,” he counters, “Three out of five days next week I'm in court.”

I ask how he became such a big name. In 1963, he says, he was a trial lawyer for the Department of Justice. “A good one. I was trying major cases.” His brother was a songwriter. His brother had a songwriting partner. The partner needed to get divorced. Raoul was offered the case for a $10,000 retainer. This is more than he was making annually at Justice, he says. He took it. This was in the days when you had to prove fault in a divorce case, and he was able to prove that the best man at the wedding had had an affair with the wife. The tabs used the headline: “Best Man Kisses and Tells.”

So his name was out there. Other lawyers gave him the divorce cases they didn't want. He makes the “proctologist” analogy that I've read in at least two other places. “I was constantly in court the first three years.” Then he had cases of his own. Et cetera.

He fends off accusations-which I did not make-that he's a publicity hound by insisting that, “It's only a fraction of our cases you hear about.”

I ask about how the practice has changed. “It's turned out to be an accountants and appraisers game,” he grumps. His theory is that when there was fault, that's where people got out their anger. Now it gets worked out through asset squabbles.

I try to get back to Myra, his wife. He tells me other lawyers like her, but don't like him. How come? Because she joins the organizations and gives lectures (he doesn't mention anything about any ability she might have). Thus he gets back onto the subject of other divorce lawyers. “I have zero interest in becoming one of their club,” he says. “I find lawyers among the dullest civilized group in the world.” He tells me he resigned from “their academy” in disgust. “They all get this Napoleon complex,” he says.“"Basically, second-class people.”

He adds that needy people are attracted to the profession. I ask if that includes him. “I have a very high IQ,” he replies.

Also, he tells me, he has a life outside the practice. For instance: a PBS show with Jackie Mason.

“People are generally better off with their family practitioner” than with a matrimonial specialist, he concludes.

In light of that, I ask why people choose him. “They come more because you're the boutique in fashion” than for any other reason, he says.

Finally, I ask if he enjoys the work. “It's a job,” he says.