Kim Kardashian may soon be a real lawyer (even if she did just fail the bar), but the lawyer that she plays on the new Ryan Murphy Hulu show isn’t inspired by her own forays into practicing law. The character is inspired by the woman who represented Kardashian in her divorces: Jewish divorce attorney to the stars Laura Wasser.
In fact, the show’s name, “All’s Fair,” was once the name of Wasser’s own podcast.
“I’ve been practicing family law for over 20 years and I’ve worked on thousands of divorces, shepherding people through what may be the most terrifying times in their lives,” Wasser said in the intro. “Along the way, I’ve often had to remind people to lower their expectations. When dealing with matters of the heart, rules simply don’t apply because — all’s fair in love and war,” she finished, quoting the proverb that dates all the way back to 1578.
Now, her story is the inspiration for the Hulu legal melodrama which stars Naomi Watts, Glenn Close, Niecy Nash, Sarah Paulson and of course, Kim Kardashian.
Wasser found out about it in the best of ways, through Kris Jenner herself — who Wasser also represented in her divorce. “She said, ‘You’re not going to believe this. So we’re doing a show and it’s inspired by you,'” Wasser recalled in an interview with The Cut.
So who is Laura Wasser?
Laura Wasser, 57, was born on the day her father, attorney Dennis Wasser, passed the bar, which is why her initials are L.A.W. (Laura Allison Wasser). Wasser still practices divorce law at her father’s firm, Wasser Cooperman & Mandles. Dennis himself is also a lawyer to the stars — he’s represented Steven Spielberg, Clint Eastwood, Tom Cruise, James Woods, Jane Fonda, Richard Dreyfus, Lionel Richie and Jennifer Lopez in their divorces.
In a strange way, we may have antisemitism to thank for the Wassers’ rise to divorce lawyer fame.
“Divorce was kind of the ugly stepchild of the law,” Wasser told Kara Swisher back in 2019. “When my dad first started practicing divorce here in Southern California in the ’60s, it was because young Jewish men — forget women — couldn’t get jobs doing anything but family law, matrimonial or personal injury. They couldn’t get hired at the white collar law firms that do taxes and all that stuff… so that’s what he went into, because it was kind of the schlepper version. And then he rose to the top of his field and he represented Billie Jean King in what was the first ‘galimony’ palimony case.”
Wasser’s parents — her dad Dennis and the late Bunny Wasser — divorced when she was a teen, and maintained a really good relationship with each other. Their amicable divorce could be the reason Wasser is known for doing her best to keep her clients out of courts and to make divorce as painless as possible. She wrote the 2013 book “It Doesn’t Have to Be That Way: How to Divorce Without Destroying Your Family Or Bankrupting Yourself,” and was the founder and CEO of It’s Over Easy, which helped people get divorces with little to no involvement from a lawyer. The site was later acquired by Divorce.com.
Wasser truly believes that most divorces can end amicably, and she also does her best to go above and beyond for her clients: “I have had clients who are entertainers, athletes, executives, academics, homemakers, writers, directors, financial professionals and mental health care providers. I make it a point to learn about what they do and what they believe so that I can understand where they are coming from,” she wrote in 2020. “Some insist upon it, like the Scientologist client I had who, while completely acknowledging that I am Jewish with no plans to convert, wanted me to study a few books about ‘getting clear’ in order that I could have a better understanding of why his belief in the church was essential to him.”
Aside from Kardashian, Wasser has also represented Angelina Jolie, Heidi Klum, Ryan Reynolds, Christina Aguilera, Hilary Duff and Kelly Clarkson in their divorces.
Is Laura Wasser divorced herself?
Wasser got divorced once when she was 25 and is the mother of two teen boys from two separate men, with whom she co-parents amicably. “I wouldn’t have it any other way,” she told The Cut. “We don’t have a piece of paper between us, any of us.”
Wasser shared her approach to relationships and divorces in a 2018 podcast interview with Kris Jenner: “My belief is that humans weren’t meant to mate for life… maybe they were meant to mate for life when we were dying in our late 30s and early 40s,” she said. “I really do think that if you have a next chapter in your life with someone else, that doesn’t need to be a disaster. It can be something that you say… ‘This is this person with whom I had children and with whom I still want to raise them — he or she is still my family member, but my next chapter starts here and that is not a tragedy.'”
Which “All’s Fair” character is inspired by Laura Wasser?
Well, Kardashian’s character is named Allura, which does sound a lot like Laura, but none of the characters are an exact representation of Laura’s story and family.
What does Laura Wasser think about “All’s Fair”?
Wasser seems to love the show, calling it “absolutely delicious” in an Instagram post, but she has some reservations about how true to life it is.
Even if her Instagram shows a very keen sense of style and a lot of lovely overseas vacations, Wasser’s life is nowhere near as glamorous and opulent as the women in “All’s Fair,” who wear the latest fashions while jetting around the country in private planes.
“I’m a 30-year-plus lawyer at this point, and I will go on record as saying I do not have a plane,” Wasser told E. “I have never flown to New York or even stayed locally and bid on a multi-hundred-thousand-dollar piece at a Sotheby’s or Christie’s Auction. I have one nice car — usually paid through my firm because I drive to court in it.”
Does Laura Wasser think “All’s Fair” is realistic?
Some of the unscrupulous methods shown on the camp Hulu show aren’t far from what some divorce lawyers have to resort to, she says.
“That’s one of the more frustrating things about working with high-net-worth and high-profile individuals. For lack of a better legal term, extortion often comes in play,” she explained to E. “We do see that a lot because we are very cognizant of trying to keep people out of the media and keep people from getting canceled.”
And when it comes to divorce proceedings in California: “Anything that you’re going to say, any exhibits that you attach — whether they’re admissible or not — once they hit the family law portal, that’s public,” Laura continued. “It really can be very dicey in terms of what you’re going to litigate. As much as we try to keep things private, they often are not private.”
Wait, didn’t Laura Dern play a character inspired by Laura Wasser in Noah Baumbach’s 2019 “Marriage Story”?
Yes! In 2019, Laura Dern was nominated for a Golden Globe for playing Nora Fanshaw, a divorce lawyer handling Nicole Barber’s (Scarlett Johansson) divorce from Charlie Barber (Adam Driver) in Noam Baumbach’s “Marriage Story.”
“Early on Noah Baumbach asked if he could use our office for some scenes,” Wasser recalled in her podcast in 2019, though she called the characters of the divorce lawyers “caricatures.”
“Nora Fanshaw — everyone seems to respect her, fear her… in the end, [she] seems to make their situation worse,” Wasser said of the Laura Dern character.
“Alan Alda, I wrote down some of his amazing lines because he makes so much sense… I’d rather be the Alan Alda character,” she mused in the same podcast episode, though she said the movie was a must-watch for anyone practicing family law and an important portrait of marriage and divorce.
While Wasser doesn’t really believe Fanshaw is a good representation of her, she did represent Dern, Johansson, star Julie Hagerty and Baumbach’s ex-wife Jennifer Jason Leigh — who has a role as a Jewish divorcee in “All’s Fair” — in their real-life divorces.
