Paying It Forward

“I want to start a fund.”

I’m talking to my divorce attorney, to whom I’ve just referred my friend Nichole. Nichole is maybe my fifth referral? But just like all the others, Nichole can’t afford my attorney’s hourly rate of $600, not beyond an initial consult. 

“A fund?” my attorney asks.

“Yeah. A fund to help women through their divorces. Women like me who have stepped back from their careers to raise children. Women who are going up against professional spouses and need expert lawyers to come away with their fair share of the pie.”

I was lucky with my divorce. It was a bruising, years-long battle, but I had three important things on my side:

1. My ex is a good earner, and a good saver. 

2. I had my own savings from a long career in the investment world. The gangbuster Covid stock market was another lucky concurrence.

3. Most importantly, I had a first rate, experienced attorney. 

But even with all of that going for me, my lawyer and I hit a brick wall when we questioned my husband’s partners about the complex valuation of B and C shares, vesting, rollovers, trigger events, etc etc. Without my lawyer, I'd have been even more shut out of a fair negotiation.

As I said to her when we began divorce proceedings, “On my kids, I’m not trying to go after more than I’m due. But I’m not going to settle for less than that, either.”

Everyone acknowledges that the work of raising children is undervalued in our culture. But too often in divorce men think it is their money, and their largess, that’s been paying for our lives, rather than shared community resources. 

Nichole’s husband actually told her, “I’m divorcing you before I sell the company.” Ding ding ding ding went the alarm bells in my head. Nichole is a physician who gave up her demanding practice to focus on their three kids. She’s cut off from her husband’s income at the moment and can barely pay her bills. She’s 57, a Stanford graduate, who just sent her third kid off to college.

Anyway, back to the fund. The way it would work is by providing interest free loans as a bridge to support women through their divorces. When the divorce is settled, and the women re-launched in their lives, they can repay it. However long it takes, whenever the time is right. Even if it’s bequeathed in a will.

Do I have a big pile of money available to create this fund? I don’t. But I’m putting the idea of it out there, into the ether. My lawyer and her clients are a small start, same with this blog post. My hope is that we women can help each other over the hurdle of divorce, to futures that reflect the enormity of our contribution to the world: our grown children.