Law: A Struggle for Splitsville's Buck:Felder tops Mitchelson

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Throwing the first punch against husband Mike Tyson last October, Robin Givens hired Marvin Mitchelson, the dean of American divorce gurus, to handle her much publicized breakup with the world heavyweight boxing champion. But Givens soon dropped the Los Angeles attorney and signed with Raoul Felder, 54, a New York City divorce lawyer who has won handsome settlements for the former wives of Mel Brooks, Martin Scorsese and Robin Leach, among others. For Felder to take charge of the season's most ballyhooed split seemed a fitting turnaround. Mitchelson, 60, who has recently been accused of professional misconduct and even rape, appears to preside over a tarnished empire. Felder, meanwhile, is quickly becoming the nation's No. 1 unplighter of celebrity troths. Says he, modestly: "I'm the hot game in town."

The whole divorce game, in fact, is simmering. Some 1,157,000 divorces were granted last year, and about 20,000 lawyers in the U.S. specialize in divorce, with another 20,000 occasionally handling breakups. According to Richard Podell, head of the American Bar Association's family-law section, 42 states now have some form of no-fault divorce proceedings, in which assets, not adultery, are the prime issue. These days, most divorces are conducted as negotiable business arrangements.

Felder, whose firm billed some $12 million last year, is one of the sharpest operators at the negotiating table. Typical of his bargaining skills was the 1986 out-of-court settlement that saved more than $400 million for real estate magnate Sol Goldman, who has since died. But when Felder does go to court, says Peter Bronstein, a well-known Manhattan matrimonial lawyer, "he stands up and he yells and screams. People know he's there." The dapper Felder, who charges $450 per hour (compared with Mitchelson's $350), attributes his success in part to a no-nonsense way of handling the rich and famous. "You can't fawn over a celebrity," he insists. "Most of them are narcissistic, self-involved, with little insight into what's going on in their life. You have to be able to tell them off."

Far more important than Felder's brief-side manner, however, is his ability to win big money for clients with his uncanny publicity skills. Perceiving that the public had judged Robin Givens to be a gold digger in pursuit of her hubby's heavyweight fortune, Felder told the press that Robin sought no money from the divorce. But less than a month later, he filed a $125 million libel suit against Tyson on her behalf. The reason? The champ was quoted in the New York Post lambasting the actress and her mother as, among other things, "the slime of the slime." Says Felder, with some glee: "This is the highest- profile divorce ever. We're getting hate mail."

Felder and Mitchelson actually have more than a little in common. Both men are married to former actresses and flaunt ostentatious life-styles. Both are energetic courtroom performers who run primarily on instinct. Quips Bronstein: "Neither could be mistaken for the editor of the Harvard Law Review." In fact, the two men in 1981 discussed merging their practices to form a bicoastal divorce powerhouse. But nothing came of the idea: neither attorney seemed to need the business.