Whom to Partner With for Your Family Law Practice? Family, Of Course

To say that Scott Klopert and Debra Ravden practice family law is to be doubly accurate.

The siblings formed Klopert & Ravden, an Encino-based partnership that specializes in family law, in 2006. But Scott, who at 34 is three years older than his sister, never had the childhood goal of practicing law that his sister Debra did.

“I wanted to be a lawyer since I was 5,” she says. “I knew I’d be good at it because I kept winning arguments with Scott.”

It’s true, says her brother, who was a sole practitioner before Debra left the Beverly Hills firm of Hersh, Mannis & Bogen last year to join her brother. “I had to bring her in because I didn’t want to go up against her in court,” he says. Scott practiced at Feinberg Mindel Brandt Klein & Kline in Los Angeles for four years before starting his own practice (for the second time) in 2003.

Both attorneys are married and raising families. “When we all get together, our spouses tell us that we talk too much about work,” Debra says.

Despite the difficulty of leaving work out of family gatherings, Klopert and Ravden say the partnership is beneficial for themselves and their clients.

“We understand each other better than most partners. There are none of the trust issues that other partners sometimes deal with,” says Scott, a certified family law specialist. “The clients like it when they find out we’re siblings. It gives them a view of our personal lives that they otherwise might not have, and they seem to have a stronger sense of confidence in us.”

Family law has more than its share of emotional issues, and both partners say that having a sibling to lean on is an added bonus. “Because it is so challenging, we’re able to support each other when work gets especially stressful,” says Scott.