Angelina Jolie's four-year divorce battle with Brad hits new speed bump as actress parts ways with another high-priced attorney and refuses to agree to Pitt's request for 50/50 custody of their kid
- Details
- Published on Wednesday, 30 November -0001 00:00
- Written by Daily mail
Angelina Jolie's bitter divorce battle with Brad Pitt has hit yet another bump in the road after the actress parted ways with one of her high-priced attorneys.Priya Sopori, a Los Angeles-based former federal prosecutor who has been working with Jolie's lead lawyer, Samantha DeJean, is out after filing a 'Notice of Withdrawal of Attorney of Record' with LA Superior Court, DailyMail.com has learned.Experienced trial bulldog Sopori is a partner with California law firm Greenberg Glusker LLP.It's not clear whether Jolie - who is fighting Pitt's efforts to win 50/50 custody of their children - fired Sopori or if the attorney made the decision to quit.But the change in her high profile team at this late stage signals Jolie's resolve to get what she wants has only hardened.A source close to Jolie told DailyMail.com: 'Angelina has fought tooth and nail to get what she wants in this divorce, when it comes to her kids she won't back down.''She's paying her legal team a fortune, so if she believes one of her lawyers needs to go she won't hesitate to pull the trigger.' It's not the first time the mercurial 45-year-old Girl, Interrupted star has parted company with a lawyer she's hired during the long-running four year divorce saga.In 2018, superstar LA divorce attorney Laura Wasser - whose client list reads like a Who's Who of Hollywood - stopped working for Jolie when the actress's legal fight with Pitt, 56, reportedly became too 'venomous and nasty.'Wasser - who has represented Johnny Depp, Kim Kardashian, Ryan Reynolds, Stevie Wonder, Christina Aguilera, Ashton Kutcher and many other stars - has earned a reputation as a lawyer who tries to take the sting out of break-ups by promoting compromise between warring couples and shared custody of children.So it was thought at the time that Jolie's hard-nosed attitude toward Pitt was not a good fit with Wasser's more gentle, conciliatory approach.After Wasser, Jolie hired San Francisco-based DeJean who is now the only lawyer representing her in the long-running custody dispute with Pitt.The former couple are dragging security experts from two continents, an entourage of personal assistants and bodyguards, a former Jolie co-star and an army of child psychologists and doctors to give evidence in an upcoming custody trial that's expected to be held in private.Lists of witnesses filed in a Los Angeles court and seen by DailyMail.com reveal 21 people who will be testifying in the movie stars' legal fight over their children, Pax, 16, Zahara, 15, Shiloh, 14, and twins Knox and Vivienne, 12. They have a sixth child, Maddox, but he's a 19 year-old adult.One witness will be domestic violence expert Alyce LaViolette, who controversially clashed with a prosecutor in a 2013 murder trial by describing killer Jodi Arias as the victim of abuse. The kids are shuttled back and forth in blacked-out SUVs and limousines between their parent's LA homes, which are around a mile from one another in the affluent suburb also inhabited by A-listers including Ryan Gosling and Eva Mendes, Jon Hamm and Zac Efron.In early April, the superstars came to an agreement that will see the children attend a more traditional schooling program in LA, marking an end to their homeschooling regime.Jolie said she stands by her choice to leave Pitt.'It was the right decision,' the actress told Vogue in June.'I continue to focus on their (the kids') healing. Some have taken advantage of my silence, and the children see lies about themselves in the media, but I remind them that they know their own truth and their own minds.'The custody trial was due to start earlier this month but it has been delayed after Jolie asked for the private judge to be replaced, claiming that he 'failed to disclose' that he was working other cases with one of Pitt's lawyers.
 |
Share
