For Better, Worse, Or Divorce Podcast

For the next episode in our “Hollywood & Family Law” series, Brian Walters, Jake Gilbreath, and the firm’s Marketing Director Katy Justice dive into the Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie divorce, exploring what causes lengthy delays in high-profile and complex cases. From custody battles to financial disputes, Brian and Jake discuss some common reasons divorces drag out and how these factors apply in all kinds of divorces, including celebrities and the cases we see every day.

If you have a complex divorce case in the state of Texas you’d like to discuss with our legal team, please email us at podcast@waltersgilbreath.com or you can schedule a consultation on our website at www.waltersgilbreath.com.

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Brian Walters: Thanks for tuning in to the For Better, Worse, or Divorce podcast, where we provide you tips and insights on how to navigate divorce and child custody situations in the state of Texas. I’m Brian Walters. I’m here today and I’m joined by Jake Gilbreath as well as our marketing director, Katy Justice. This is our third episode in our quarterly series on pop culture, celebrity news, and how it ties into family law cases.

For this episode, we will be talking about recent views that Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s divorce has been ongoing and not finalized for over eight years. We will review some of the details of their case that has contributed to their divorce dragging out for so long, and our firm’s experience in handling these kinds of cases. So take it away, Katy.

Katy Justice: I’ll be citing articles from People Magazine, Daily Mail, BBC, and The Cut. To give some backstory, Angelina Jolie filed for divorce back in September, 2016. Her and Brad have six children together and were declared legally single by a judge in 2019, but they’ve continued their legal battle over eight years later. There’s been two issues. One regarding their shared business, Chateau Miraval, which is a French winery that they own together, and then the custody of their kids.

Some information on their business, Chateau Miraval. In 2022, Pitt sued Jolie for selling her shares in the company. He claimed she did so without his approval and defied the agreement they allegedly had that they would not sell either parts of their ownership without the other’s consent. Countersuit accused Pitt of waging a vindictive war against Jolie and claimed that there was never such agreement. That’s the business portion that’s complicated things.

Then as far as the custody; in the original divorce petition Jolie asked the court to grant her sole custody of the then minor children that range from ages 8 to 15, with visitation rights for Pitt. This was following an incident in 2016 right before Jolie filed for divorce, where she accused Pitt of some abuse aboard a private jet. After that, Pitt had gone through therapeutic visitation and was ordered to undergo random drug and alcohol testing.

Later, in 2018, there was a shared possession schedule with an order requiring Jolie to tell their children that they are safe when they’re with their father and that having a healthy relationship with both parents is critical. Then after that, in 2021, Pitt was temporarily ordered joint custody, which Jolie appealed and won, alleging that the judge who had overseen the custody trial had a conflict of interest with Pitt’s legal team.

Now, Jolie remains primary custody and their two adult children have now recently dropped the name Pitt from their names. So Jake and Brian, if you maybe want to start with the shared business and our experience handling some of the business complications in a divorce, and then maybe the custody.

Brian Walters: Well, that’s a fascinating set of circumstances. I don’t know all the details, I haven’t read the divorce settlement or whatever. One of the first rules I think you would try to do when you own a business together as a couple, or an asset, even if it’s in one of your names but you jointly own it because of community property, I think it’s usually a bad idea to continue to be business partners after the divorce. In theory, maybe for some people you could work through that, but it’s difficult enough to be a business partner and then to add on the emotional components of it. And to be in the middle of a custody battle over six kids, it just sounds like there is a great deal of opportunity for conflict, and that sounds like exactly what happened here.

It also has bizarre terms. It seems like they both retain some ownership, 50/50 ownership or something of this winery, but then they couldn’t sell their own shares without the approval of the other side. You’re just asking for problems. Why would they give you consent to sell? They don’t like you. You’re in the middle of a custody suit over their kids. That sounds like a really bad idea too.

Then the third thing is the claim that there’s no such agreement. That should be really simple, to open up a document, a settlement agreement or a court order or whatever, and it should say that very simply, “Yes, you can do it.” Or, “No you can’t.” So I’m not sure if there was a drafting problem, and it sounds like that might’ve been what happened. So it’s all in all a very bizarre situation. I don’t know who is to blame for coming up with this crazy idea, which has backfired on everybody. It sounds like all the no-no’s when folks are getting divorced and there’s a business. Any thoughts you have, Jake, on top of that?

Jake Gilbreath: Well back to your point about sharing a business post-divorce, I have clients that ask about that because it is daunting to have to go through the business valuation process. Because if somebody’s getting the business in the divorce, obviously it needs to come with a value. It’s no different than if one of them is getting the house. There needs to be a value put on it so we can put it on the spreadsheet. That’s a complicated process, we’ve talked about that in other podcasts.

I think we’ve talked about this in other podcasts too, but I have clients say, “Well, let’s just own it together.” If you can’t stay married together, then what makes you think you can run a business together? Particularly if we have kids and we’re fighting over kids. Things are emotional, emotion and running a business together does not go very well together, and leads to a lot of litigation.

I don’t know if this is what’s causing it in their divorce, but it sounds like the custody case is causing things to prolong. A lot of times the valuation process of a business is the longest part of a divorce. All the time we have people come to us and either they don’t have children or the kid stuff is largely worked out. If it’s not, then it’s going to get worked out fairly quickly on temporary orders. Maybe there’s some joint accounts and maybe some separate accounts that we need to exchange discovery on. There’s nothing complicated about their divorce that means that it can’t get done in a few months, except for the business valuation.

When you have a small business in a divorce and it has to get valued a lot of times in the divorce the lawyers are waiting for the experts. One side’s going to have one expert, the other side’s going to have their own expert. It’s going to value this business and that just frankly takes time. It takes longer, in my experience, than the legal process, as far as pushing things along. A lot of times you’ll have divorces and you’ll have this big spike of work when people work out custody and temporary orders. Then everybody’s sitting around twiddling their thumbs and waiting for the experts to value the business. Obviously providing documentation for the experts and monitoring the case, but really we’re waiting for the experts.

When people come in they say, “I’m thinking about going through divorce. I don’t know if I’m going to go through divorce or not, but I’m thinking about it and there’s a small business involved.” I also tell them to go ahead and start, maybe even retain an expert. At a minimum, start gathering the documentation that you’re going to need to value the business. Go in and get that process started because that’s probably what’s going to delay the divorce. Likewise, if people come and the divorce has already been filed and they have a small business, usually both Brian and I in the consult we’re saying, “First step is let’s go ahead and get expert lined up and start the business valuation process, because that’s probably going to be the longest part of your divorce.”

Brian, I know you had this experience. I’m always shocked at how many people that come in to consult with us and they’ve had a lawyer represent them for the first part of the divorce, maybe they’ve been going on for three to six months. You ask them, “Okay, so where are y’all at in the business valuation process?” And they say, “Oh, well, we haven’t even hired an expert yet. I didn’t know that we needed to do that yet.” Their divorce is just that much more delayed.

It’s important in the initial consultation to go ahead and have that conversation of here’s things that we can go ahead and start right away because they’re going to be what takes the longest in a divorce. And one of those, of course, being business valuation.

Brian Walters: Yeah, I think that all makes sense. And I will say on this, keeping the shares part of it, that is a way to avoid a valuation battle. That’s the one plus to it. But like we said, probably if you can’t stay married you’re probably not going to be able to stay in business together .Especially this kind of divorce. This isn’t just like, “Yeah, we grew apart,” this was bad. 

Also, it’s not really a business they’re running. It’s a French winery. What do these two people know, or me for that matter, about running a French winery? Of course, nothing. You’re just a passive investor. Why do you even want to be doing that? Jake, do you want to take us through the custody issues, which we pretty much touched most of the bases. 

Jake Gilbreath: The other thing that can make a divorce last a long time is complex custody disputes. It sounds like in this one there’s drug and alcohol allegations that could obviously make things very complicated. If you have somebody or both parents that are struggling with addiction and you’re going through a divorce, a court’s going to want to intervene. Obviously protect the children and also come up with a path forward for the parent that has drug and alcohol addictions, if that parent is willing to embark on the path and be sober. 

We’ve talked about this a lot in other podcasts but if somebody is struggling with addiction, obviously the court’s going to protect the children first. Then second, they’re going to put in place a path for sobriety and increased access if the parent is committed to sobriety and is testing clean and doing the steps that we want him or her to do to prove sobriety. Long-term sobriety. Not just not drinking, but sobriety. We’re not just not using, but sobriety.

That can take time. Sobriety is very difficult. Struggling with addiction is very difficult. It can take time, and that can inevitably make the divorce process longer because the court’s going to want to come in and monitor it. They’re not going to want to sit there and say, “Well, this is the problem. Here’s a final order for y’all,” just two months after a divorce got filed where there’s drug and alcohol addiction issues.

In theory, you can do that. A court’s largely, mostly not going to want to do that. Practitioners are largely not going to want to do that. They’re going to want a longer monitoring process to make sure that somebody’s actually committed to sobriety, and we see how it goes while the court watches over things. But that can drag things out, Brian. Is that your experience as well, as far as how long these things can take and what can drag out a divorce when you have alcohol and drug addictions?

Brian Walters: Yeah, and it’s a good point. I think it seems like there was a period of time where things did calm down and get under control, maybe in 2018. But then it popped back up, and that’s a classic issue with addiction, is that maybe somebody has it under control for three years and then they slip back into it. Or maybe the other person thinks they’ve slipped back and they haven’t.

This is a difficult issue. How do you monitor it? Is the other person sober or not? Oftentimes, you’re getting your information from your children about Dad’s problem or Mom’s problem or whatever. Which is a problem in and of itself, both because that really isn’t the kid’s business, and secondly, there might be agendas involved in what they report. So it’s all in all a very complex situation, it can cause a lot of problems.

This is one of those, I call them lifetime cases. It’s a little bit of an exaggeration. But basically until the kids turn 18, they’re going to be in and out of court. There are cases like this. It sounds like that’s probably what’s going to eventually get these folks out of court. If I’m doing my math right I think that the youngest of these kids is 16, so they’re about to be about to be 18. Maybe that’ll be the only way this case ever ends for these folks.  

Jake Gilbreath: It sounds like on this one some of the children have turned 18 in the middle of the divorce, which we see that. Legally speaking, the way that works is the court loses jurisdiction over those children to make orders for conservatorship and possession and access. In Texas they can still make child support orders until a child turns 18 or they graduate high school, whichever one occurs later. Except for there are circumstances with disability that could extend past that time. But largely, kid issues are going to be over when a child turns 18.

Then you have the issue that now the court loses jurisdiction over maybe half the children, and the other half the court still has jurisdiction over. It sounds like what’s interesting in this case is once a kid turns 18, in theory, you can have that child come testify. As I read the news story, it sounds like that’s something Angelina Jolie wanted. She wanted the kids over the age of 18 to come testify. Under 18, in the state of Texas, they can confer with the judge in chambers. After 18, the only way to get a child’s information in front of a judge, I guess an adult at this point, adult’s information in front of the judge is for the individual to testify. It sounds like in this case the judge refused to allow the children to testify. Well, the adult children to testify. Apparently that got reversed on appeal and found that the judge was biased and essentially put the case back to square one. 

Every single case is different. I think there have been times in my career that I’ve had to put adult children on the witness stand. It’s been very rare and for very specific circumstances. I don’t think I’ve ever put an 18 or 19-year-old up on the witness stand. I’m sure I can come up with a scenario where it would be necessary, but it’s going to be met with a lot of suspicion or reluctance from the court. What are your thoughts on that?

Brian Walters: Yeah, I agree. It’s something you could do but it makes everybody very uncomfortable, the judge included. Or if you’re in front of a jury, I think it can be seen as a very risky thing to do. You and I had a case once where that happened. I’m not sure that helped the case or not, but sometimes clients insist on it.

I do think this case is interesting on a different vector, which is this private judge. Just speaking briefly about a private judge. If both sides agree you can hire a judge that’s generally a retired judge, former judge or something like that, to handle your case and to be the judge for it. You would do that in cases where you wanted privacy, is the most common reason. Another reason would be sometimes it can be quicker. Obviously these folks have been all over the news and so I guess they decided they wanted privacy. I guess that was their concept of it. Then there was some type of problem with the conflict that the court of appeals found.

I’ll ask you, Jake, have you had any dealings with private judges? And also, as a side thing, what about any conflicts that the judge might have, whether it’s a private or a regular judge? with either an attorney or a party to the case? How do we handle that?

Jake Gilbreath: Well, we certainly do use private judges. They’re called special judges under the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code. I have several cases right now like that and we have several podcasts of all the benefits of it and the pitfalls. One pitfall being is that it’s important that everybody’s aware, if you’re going to go take a case to Judge So-and-so as a special judge, everybody should be aware that the attorneys aren’t guaranteeing that this judge is going to rule in their favor. It’s important that everybody knows the relationship that the judge has with everybody. It’d just be full disclosure for clients because they need to know.

We socialize with people that are in the bar, and I think some clients still are surprised when they find out that we all socialize with one another, opposing counsel alike, a lot of us are friends with one another. We can sit there and advocate for our clients, and at the same time not be difficult with each other, and in fact, be friendly with each other. It’s the same for judges, arbitrators and what have you.  There’s judges that we know and some of them are even personal friends. The fact that they’re judges, it has no impact at all on his or her decision making. We all have a job to do. Some clients need to be aware of that, particularly in situations where there’s a private judge or a private arbitrator.

Now, if there’s a financial conflict of interest or people are intertwined financially with a private judge or an actual judge, that needs to be disclosed and that judge probably would have a conflict. It’s important that just everybody’s up and up on that. Then as far as related arbitrators it’s very important that if a case is going to arbitration that everybody is aware of the relationships that we have.

I don’t have the case pulled up in front of me, but there’s a case out of Houston where essentially a case went to arbitration. I think it was a post-mediation arbitration and the arbitrator issued a ruling. One side didn’t like the ruling, and then said, “Well, the arbitrator is biased because he didn’t disclose that he was personal friends with the other lawyer.” Now, frankly, the lawyers reading that case as I read it, “Yeah, we’re kind of all friends with each other,” didn’t see it as that big a deal. But the court of appeals said, “Well, that is a big deal. And it should have been disclosed that the arbitrator was friends with one side.” I think we need to be careful about that stuff. I think the opinion is fair, that people need to be aware of what the relationships are so clients can make informed decisions.

That case hasn’t been applied to private judges to say whether or not a private judge will be biased or not, or you could vacate a ruling because a private or special judge had a personal relationship. But it’s a good idea for arbitrators, private judges, and even elected judges, that everybody knows and is aware of what the relationships are. Because nobody wants to try a case to a conclusion and then it goes up on appeal and gets vacated or reversed.

Brian Walters: Yeah, exactly. It’s the old saying that it doesn’t hurt to just disclose things, and usually people won’t have a problem with them. You should disclose it up front and get everybody to agree it’s not a problem, and then go forward. Because I think what happened here is that one side lost and started looking for a reason to overturn it. It doesn’t sound like a particularly good reason to me, but on the other hand the court of appeals thought it was, so that’s what matters.

Well, one last issue on this is about these horrible delays. I get asked that all the time. How long is this case going to last? Or how long will my divorce last and how much will it cost? Those are totally valid questions. In fact even in consults I usually just bring it up myself because it’s important and everybody asks it. So what are things that can delay divorces? I’ll talk a little bit about the financial part of it, you can talk a little bit about the kid part of it.

You spoke on the property and on the valuation of a business. That can be difficult. Also, if somebody’s hiding assets or somebody thinks they’re hiding assets, that can be difficult, especially if they’re overseas or being held by somebody else. Those are things that can be very slow.

Another big one is if there’s a prenuptial or postnuptial agreement and somebody’s challenging them. Generally that requires what’s called a bifurcation of the case. That’s where the court just breaks it into two pieces and says, “We’re going to have a trial on whether that’s a valid prenup or postnup. If it is valid, then we’ll have a trial on how to divide things based on that pre or postnup. If it’s not valid, then I’ll just divide things the way Texas law would normally have us divide it.” I’d say those are the bigger issues with property. What are the kind of things that delay and drag out custody cases? I think we see a few of them in the Pitt-Joliet case, by the way.

Jake Gilbreath: We talk about drug and alcohol issues, and anything that requires continuing monitoring. Step-up possession schedules tend to drag cases out. And then frankly, custody evaluations. If people want to have a custody evaluation of their case, which makes sense in a lot of cases, to have a neutral third party come in and evaluate both sides. Evaluate both households and make a report to the court about what the best interest of the children is. That’s something that can be very, very useful in custody cases.

It can also take a lot of time because there’s a lot of work that goes into it. That’s the point of a custody evaluation, is that you’re doing more than just spending three hours with a judge who’s going to make a decision that’s going to impact you and your children’s life for years to come. Let’s have somebody that can spend a lot more time and make recommendations to the court. Which again, that can be a huge benefit for cases but it also takes time and people just need to be aware of that. 

Countless times I have people come in when we’re their second lawyer and they’ve agreed to a custody evaluation, which is perfectly appropriate for their case, but they come in the consult and they go, “Well, why am I not divorced in the next month?” And nobody’s told them “Hey, this custody evaluation may take six months. It may take a year.” Depending on who the evaluator is and what they’re looking at, what the issues are, which a lot of cases, it’s still an appropriate thing to do. It’s just that clients need to be aware of that.

I think we have a note here, Brian, to talk about managing expectations. Ultimately, that’s what all this comes down to, is clients need to be aware about what things would look like if you agree to a custody evaluation or a business valuation or whatever we’re doing. We’re going after hidden assets. We’re having a disagreement about a premarital or postmarital agreement. Part of that discussion needs to be how long is this going to take and how much is this going to cost? Which is a completely different topic that we’ve touched on many times in this podcast.

You need to find a lawyer who’s actually willing to have that conversation and give actual estimates based on our experience. Not somebody that’s going to sit there and hem and haw and say, “I don’t know. We’ll see. It depends,” and that’s the only information you get. Nobody’s going to give you a guarantee, but you do deserve to know what our experience tells us as far as how long things are going to take and how much it’s going to cost. Brian, I think you say this most in the podcast, is our clients actually understand that this is our estimate and things change, but they deserve to know the estimate. That’s something that’s really important in the consultation.

Brian Walters: Yeah, I’m sure you do it too. I give dollar numbers. I don’t say it’s going to cost a lot or a little. That doesn’t really help anybody. Okay, well, very good. That’s all we have for today. This was our third episode in this ongoing pop culture series that we have, so be on the lookout for more episodes like this. I have seen some other celebrities with family law news as recently as yesterday, so I’m sure we have some additional topics that we can cover. If there’s a topic you’d like to discuss, just email us at podcast@waltersgilbreath.com, or let us know otherwise, we love the feedback. I’m Brian Walters, joined by Jake Gilbreath and Katy Justice, and thanks for listening.

Katy Justice: Thank you.

For information about the topics covered in today’s episode and more, you can visit our website at waltersgilbreth.com. Thanks for tuning into today’s episode of For Better, Worse, or Divorce, where we post new episodes every first and third Wednesday. Do you have a topic you want discussed or a question for our hosts? Email us at podcast@waltersgilbreath.com. Thanks for listening. Until next time.