We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Stephen Cawelti a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Stephen , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

At our law firm, our mission is to guide you through the divorce process without the drama, without costing you a fortune, and without ruining your family.

Why is this mission meaningful to us? We care about our clients and their lives post-divorce. We know that the most successful divorces end with both parties being content. Our goal is to create a sustainable and safe situation for our clients and their families.

We don’t want to string clients along just to pad our own pockets. There are cost-effective ways to get divorced, whether it be through mediation, self-filing, or collaboratively. We talk through these options when we consult with clients and only take the more costly litigation route if it is what their divorce needs.

By providing education and options to our clients we are not only helping them save money and time on their divorce, we are helping their ex-partners save money and time as well. This does a lot to create a positive start to their post-divorce relationship. This is especially important when there are kids involved and a co-parenting relationship needs to be maintained.

Overall the mission of our firm impacts my work every day. My employees and I all work to be genuine, empathetic professionals who make our clients’ lives better with the work we do. It doesn’t matter if I’m doing the most contentious and litigious divorce I’ve ever done or an initial phone consult, I am working to improve someone’s life.

Stephen , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Before I went to law school I completed my bachelors in Psychology. I worked at a group home taking care of teenagers for a couple years before I went on to graduate school. That experience really taught me how to deal with difficult people and also solidified my desire to work in an industry where I can help people. Once I decided to practice law I naturally gravitated toward the area of Family Law because I knew I would be able to handle the delicate complexities that divorce brings to the table.

One of my biggest accomplishments, aside from my many big wins in court, is my work with the Los Angeles County Bar Association. I have been part of a group of Family Law attorneys that meet regularly to discuss legislation and the issues revolving around Family Law. I became a board member a few years ago and this year I became the Chair of the Family Law section of LACBA.

At my law firm, Stephen L. Cawelti, APC, we not only handle divorces, but we work with custody, post-judgment, pre/post-nuptial agreements, mediation, parentage, and domestic violence cases. I have been practicing law since 2006 and I’ve had my own firm since 2018. When I started out it was just a paralegal and me, but over the past 5 years we have grown and now we have an associate attorney, 2 paralegals, and a legal assistant. Being that we are a small firm we are able to give our clients the personal attention they are looking for and deserve.

I love the challenge of navigating the difficulties that my clients experience, but nothing feels better at the end of the day than knowing I’ve done a good job for my client and helped them achieve their goals. Whether it’s being able to see their kids again or getting a restraining order for someone experiencing domestic violence, I feel so satisfied when I can truly help each and every one of my clients. I treat each client as an individual and take the time to listen to them and hear their story. Some firms work on volume and clients just feel like a number. At my firm, my staff and I have compassion for what the clients are experiencing and are looking for the best solution for all involved.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

Honesty and integrity. Seriously, the old adage is 100% true in my field of family law litigation/mediation: it takes a lifetime to build and seconds to destroy. Okay, so maybe that’s a slight exaggeration, but not much. A recent judicial officer survey showed that judges talk, and they talk about you. Your reputation isn’t going to make or break your case, but you’ll never know all the reasons why you won or lost.

I started with a good firm with a poor reputation, saw that I needed to refine who I wanted to be in family law, and moved to a good firm with a great reputation. I worked hard and paid some dues, learned a lot of lessons, and then made my own way. So, I guess the answer is “reputation awareness” and knowing from the start that I wanted to be what judges refer to as “one of the good ones”.

How do you keep your team’s morale high?

This is hard because it’s always changing, but #1 is always sharing winning experiences with the team. In my work, there are lots of ways to “win”, but the easiest to recognize are wins in court or in mediation. In family law, home runs are rare. More commonly, if your client gets more of what they wanted/needed than the other side did, that’s a win. Often, there are draws, which are often still good if you’ve set client expectations where they need to be. Losses are less common if you’ve counseled clients not to take those risks in the first place. Hopefully, blow outs are as uncommon as home runs.

Support staff need to hear about positive results and should be praised for their roles in making it happen. I can’t be at my best without them, and they need to hear about it. Whatever you think, you aren’t applauding the team as much as you should.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://caweltilaw.com/divorce-lawyer/
• Instagram: @losangelesdivorceattorney
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/divorcefamilylaw
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/law-office-of-stephen-l-cawelti/?viewAsMember=true
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/law-offices-of-stephen-l-cawelti-apc-burbank

Image Credits
The headshot and images 1, 2, 4, and 6 are from Sam Diephius. The 3rd and 5th photos are from the LA County Bar Association Family Law Section’s Installment dinner in August where Steve was installed as chair of the Family Law Section (FLEXCOM).