Sorrell Trope 1927-2020

After finishing at the top of his law school class at USC in 1949, Sorrell Trope couldn't get a job at any white shoe firm in downtown Los Angeles because he was Jewish. Instead, he founded what became California's largest and most influential family law boutique.

Trope, who represented some of Hollywood's biggest names for decades while mentoring much of Los Angeles' family law bar, died May 23. He was 92.

"He elevated the stature of family law and elevated the skills required to prepare and try a family law case," said Bruce Cooperman of Wasser, Copperman & Mandles. "He was just years ahead of everyone on that."

Ten years ago, he represented former Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt in his divorce from Jamie McCourt. The trial, high profile and especially contentious, provided a fitting stage for one of Trope's final performances. No longer able to drive a car or carry his briefcase, Trope shuffled to the lectern and then gave a spellbinding closing argument.

Scott Gordon, the Los Angeles County judge who presided over the case, recalled looking out at the gallery of spectators, many of them lawyers who came to watch a master in action.

"I watched the faces back there and they were just mesmerized," Gordon said.

Mark Vincent Kaplan, a former partner at Trope and Trope LLP, recalled a similar instance in one of his cases after he left the firm when Trope was opposing counsel. Well into his 80s, Trope got up to cross-examine Kaplan's expert witness. He walked slowly to the lectern and over the course of 15 minutes, "tore my expert apart," Kaplan said.

"At that moment, I was seeing the 55-year-old Sorrell," recalled Kaplan of Kaplan & Gekht.

As he made his way back to the counsel table, Trope veered toward Kaplan and placed his hand on his shoulder.

"You didn't think I still had it, did ya?" Trope whispered in Kaplan's ear. "That was perfect Sorrell."

Trope was born June 9, 1927 in Albany, New York. The family moved to Los Angeles when he was 13. He graduated from the University of Southern California in 1947 and from the law school in 1949.

Friends and colleagues said Trope's indignation over top law firms' refusal to hire him fueled a drive to succeed. He and his brother, Eugene, also a lawyer, set up a small general practice in west Los Angeles that -- for Sorrell -- soon developed into a family law practice catering to wealthy clients.

"I took in anything I could get business-wise, and it so happened that within the first year, a third of the work -- approximately a third -- was divorce work, as it was called at that time," he told an interviewer several years ago.

Trope and Trope eventually swelled to 30 lawyers, large for a family law practice, and many of the high-end family lawyers in Los Angeles today began their careers there.

Trope's first big case was representing the real estate developer and financier Mark Taper in a divorce from a young actress in 1960 that was closely followed in LA. He got the case because he was an undergraduate with Taper's son, Barry. This was in the era of no-fault divorce, which complicated matters that were made more difficult by a dispute over a child's paternity.

"After that case, my dad just started getting loads of telephone calls from wealthy people who wanted to get a divorce," said his son, Michael L. Trope, of Trope Fein LLP in Beverly Hills.

Perhaps Sorrell Trope's most consequential case was representing a mattress salesman for whom he achieved a favorable result. Sometime later, Cary Grant walked into the mattress store and began talking to the salesman about his marital discord with Dyan Cannon. The salesman said Trope had done a good job in his divorce and gave the actor Trope's business card.

"He did legal work for him until Grant passed away," Michael Trope said. "It is an example of you never know where your business will come from."

After the Grant divorce, many of Hollywood's leading lights found their way to Trope's office when marital bliss turned sour: Nicole Kidman, Britney Spears, Hugh Grant and Nicolas Cage are a few.

Always impeccably dressed, complete with a Hermes necktie, Trope insisted that the work his firm produced be of the same quality as the corporate lawyers in the downtown firms. He also made sure his billing rate, which neared $1,000 an hour by the time he retired in 2017 at 89, matched those of corporate lawyers, and he encouraged other family practitioners to follow his lead.

"Family law lawyers were sort of regarded by the downtown law firms as not in their league. They were charging as much as 40% more," said Dennis Wasser, who battled Trope in the McCourt divorce and many other matters.

"Sorrell bucked the trend and started to raise the rates and when other family lawyers saw that, they started raising their rates," Wasser added. "We spoke about that. He said more money goes through the family law courts than all the other courts combined. And he was right. We have cases where billions are at stake."

Wasser's partner, Bruce Cooperman, started his legal career at Trope and Trope and recalled the training he got there.

"Every Monday night, he would gather all the lawyers in his conference room and he would teach how he wanted a case prepared," Cooperman said. "I still have the notes from those lectures 20 to 30 years later."

"You couldn't help but learn from the man," said Larry Ginsberg, who started at Trope and Trope as a law clerk in 1985 and stayed until he opened his own practice in 1996. "The level of expertise, the focus that he required, it made everybody a stronger lawyer."

Trope insisted that the lawyers be good legal practitioners but also learn how to run a business and manage clients.

"It doesn't get any more refined and focused than what he brought to the table," said Ginsberg, of Harris Ginsberg LLP.

Judges in the Los Angeles County family law court also recalled how Trope mentored them.

"He trained not one, but probably three generations of new judges on the bench, from the courtroom lectern, and as many generations of young lawyers," Isabel R. Cohen, a retired Los Angeles County judge, wrote in an email.

"He populated the field with experienced, competent, industrious, ethical lawyers whom he personally whipped into shape, and who went on to raise professional standards for the field," Cohen continued. "All this he did by creating the original large family law firm. He was a great litigator, a brilliant wordsmith, an eminence amongst his peers, and slyly funny unexpectedly.

"He was a talented raconteur. He had perfect timing," Cohen added. "I had occasion in court to say during his argument in a state of fury, that he was cute when angry, at which he exploded in laughter. I knew my customer."

Trope also knew his judges.

"Sorrell was able to intimidate judges with the force of his argument," Wasser said. "He always said he could read a judge's mind. He said he could watch a judge's eye and know what he was thinking. And I believe it. That made him a formidable opponent."

And he got away with things in court that other lawyers couldn't, several lawyers said.

Wasser recalled Trope trying to illustrate that a document might not mean what it said. He put a sign around his neck that read "dog."

"Just because the sign says, dog, doesn't mean I'm a dog," Trope said. Another time, he whipped out a bag of dog hair and said, "There's a lot of dog hair in here but you can't find a dog in here."

After opposing counsel in another case requested Trope's client pay for a personal trainer as part of a settlement, the lawyer reportedly snapped: "You know what a personal trainer is? Nothing but a counter! One, two, three ... ."

"As tough as he was and sometimes mean and nasty, he was a good person. He had a good soul," Wasser said. "He was kind to other lawyers. I was 15 years his junior. He never lorded that over me."

Known as much for his grit as his glittery clients, Trope survived triple bypass surgery at 49, a quadruple bypass at 72, a pacemaker and a heart valve replacement and through it all continued to work. He gave himself three weeks to recover from each procedure and then returned to the office, Michael Trope recalled. "They kept on patching him up and he kept on going."

Stacy D. Phillips of Blank Rome LLP said she was told at the beginning of her career she would know she had arrived when Sorrell Trope knew her name. After beating him in a hearing, she called Trope to talk about the case. Trope was accustomed to winning and Phillips was worried how he might take it.

"Of course, you absolutely won!" Trope said.

"I was so stunned, I dropped the phone," Phillips recalled. "Here I was this young lawyer and Sorrell Trope was telling me I won."

More than all of his other successes, Trope's 54-year marriage to his wife, Linda Trope, was the thing he was most proud of. She was his fourth wife, but she was the love of his life, Michael Trope said.

Trope is survived by Linda, son Michael; daughters Donna Trope, a photographer; Allison, a professor at USC; and Laura, a jewelry designer.