Getting Past Upheaval

Esther Vayman’s favorite moments as a Georgia Supreme Court clerk came watching lawyers deliver arguments. “It reinforced how important it is to be the most prepared person in the courtroom,” she says. “You need to know your cases, the facts and the law better than anyone else in the room.”

It also led to her current practice.

Her clerkship was with Justice Robert Benham, whom she calls “a man of integrity who set a great example,” and while combing through briefs and writing memos to help decide how appeals would be ruled, she became fascinated with family law in particular. “I started reading about all these cases of lives in upheaval, and how you get through it and get past it,” she says. “These people’s lives were very different from my upbringing.”

Not that there wasn’t some measure of upheaval in her upbringing.

Born in Latvia, Vayman immigrated to the United States with her parents when she was 2. “I grew up in a supportive, conservative family—very sheltered,” she says. Her mother, who had completed medical school in their home country, worked to get into a residency program to become a doctor. Her father, an engineer by education, washed dishes to support them before getting a low-level engineering job.

“When I was young, we were very poor, and we were different—in some ways it was a struggle. The idea that we go through difficult times as people as a family unit helped me understand challenges people face, even if the challenges are temporary,” she says. “I can look at my clients who are struggling and say, ‘I understand.’ I inherently get it. It helps me relate to people.”

Being the child of immigrants informs her whole life, she says. “The resilience and work ethic of my parents set an example for me. They came to America believing it was the best country in the world, believing absolutely anything is possible here, and that has given me the confidence to take risks.”

At Milton High School, she racked up enough debate trophies to fill her family’s bookshelves. “It became clear early that I had a knack for persuasive speaking,” she says. “When I was 11, I wrote in my journal that I wanted to be a lawyer.”

Vayman studied business at Emory University, had a job in public relations for a year, and then worked for her father before enrolling in law school at Georgia State. She spent the summer of 2003 clerking at the CDC, where she had to clear numerous security protocols every day while handling employment cases and workplace conflicts—working with a staff attorney on mostly racial discrimination cases. “It taught me a lot about managing people,” she says, “which are lessons I use today in running my firm.”

After passing the Bar, Vayman worked at a couple of firms before starting her own family law practice in 2010 with husband Gregory Teitelbaum. “The hardest, most emotional part of [family law] is the kids—how a divorce and custody battle affect the children,” she says.

Then there’s the age-old desire for retribution. “A lot of people come to me, especially in divorce cases, hoping for vengeance and vindication,” she says. “I have to educate my clients that the court system isn’t here for you to punish someone. If you want that, you’re not going to get it. What we’re here to do is find an equitable way for everybody to move on.”

The 700 Club

When Esther Vayman was young she decided to cook a meal for her parents. “My dad took me to the grocery store, and we ran around looking for all these weird ingredients. I got home, I started cooking, and I realized the grocery store forgot to put the main protein in the bag,” she says. Forging ahead, she finally got dinner on the table around 10 p.m. “My parents were so patient and gracious and complimentary. I just got hooked on it.”

Now a mother of three, she continues to make meals for her family with the help of her collection of more than 700 cookbooks. “Cookbooks are really like works of art, they have beautiful pictures, stories about the recipes, and I just love them.”

Some are kept in pristine condition, but her dog-eared favorites tend come from America’s Test Kitchen, a brand of cookbooks that focus on the science of cooking. “Those are my favorite, favorite, favorite, because they really use the scientific method to create the perfect version of every recipe,” she says.