Maria Shriver with Oprah earlier this week. (Getty Images)
Maria Shriver hired a renowned LA divorce lawyer whose list of high-powered clients reads like the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
The former California first lady tapped Laura Wasser to go to legal war against philandering love rat Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The well-regarded Wasser, a single mom of two kids she had with separate boyfriends, takes a uniquely dispassionate view of marriage.
“It’s not that I have anything against marriage,” she told Vogue magazine last year, explaining her unwillingness to get hitched herself.
“I was married when I was 25. Everybody should do it. We had a great party at the Bel-Air with 10 bridesmaids, and I’ll never look that good again [the marriage lasted 15 months and ended in annulment]. For me, it just comes down to an unwillingness to let the state of California decide how I handle my affairs.”
Her clients have included Angelina Jolie, Ryan Reynolds, Britney Spears, Kiefer Sutherland, and Mel Gibson’s ex-wife, Robyn Moore.
Laura Allison Wasser herself is a chip off the old block, the daughter of equally famous LA divorce attorney Dennis Wasser.
The elder Wasser counts Tom Cruise, Steven Spielberg, Kirk Kerkorian, Clint Eastwood and Jennifer Lopez as some of his most famous clients.
Despite her big name and raven-haired, Hollywood good looks, Laura Wasser insists she doesn’t want any of the limelight enjoyed by her clients.
“I represent celebrities,” she told Vogue, “but I am not a celebrity. Nor would I ever try to get publicity for myself by trading off the worst period of someone’s life. That would make me a celebrity embalmer.”
But Wasser, who turns 43 next week, doesn’t mind adding a splash of color and designer labels to the normally drab courtroom fashion scene.
“I’ve never been terribly comfortable with the sleek black-suit lawyer look,” Wasser told Elle magazine back in 2009.
“Now that I have a little credibility and I’m in my 40s, I don’t have to work so hard to be taken seriously.”