The Legal Elite
Top Family Lawyer
Donald K. Butler
Morano, Colan & Butler

by Page B. Melton

If Donald K. Butler had more free time, he’d write novels. Or cookbooks. The idea would be to combine the things he knows about: preparing food — the more elaborate recipe the better — and family law.

How about a cookbook for the recently divorced? Chapter one: Meals to sustain yourself so you don’t have to eat out every night. Chapter two would be the next phase of coping with divorce: Meals for children when they’re in your care. The third chapter would help you get back in the swing of things: How to prepare meals to impress your date.

That Butler can make a joke about the grave subject of divorce reflects his temperament. That’s one reason colleagues chose him as the state’s top family lawyer. "If you can minimize the cost and pain — that’s the challenge. You need to mitigate a bad situation," he says. "All the cases are big. I feel all the losses and revel in the wins.’

One case that ended in a loss made him a near household name. He represented Sharon Bottoms, a lesbian mother who lost custody of her young son. The case that grappled with gay parental rights attracted national and international news coverage. The media attention was a diversion: "I did it because I thought it was an important case. The lady was wronged — by her mother and by the system."

Butler built a thriving family law practice after helping draft changes in the state’s marital property laws in the 1980s. At the time, only a handful of lawyers were versed in the revisions that essentially created a new area of law by changing how property is divided. Since then, family law has become highly specialized and is one of the fastest- growing areas of law. One of Butler’s specialties is handling divorce cases where dividing substantial assets can be as tricky as commercial litigation.

"He was the first individual in the Richmond area to say, ‘Hey, I’m a divorce lawyer and that’s all I’m going to do’," says Terry Batzli, a Richmond lawyer who chairs the Virginia State Bar’s family law section. "It was a rather bold beginning and I believe that’s why he stands out like he does. He’s done it exclusively a lot longer than 95 percent of the others."

Butler is a big fan of mediation, taking sometimes messy discussions before a retired judge or another family lawyer for resolution. He believes mediation is a lot healthier for all the parties involved and says it has a better than 90 percent success rate for resolving family issues. Because both sides agree to a mediated settlement, "you’re more likely to head off future conflicts and you’re in a better position to resolve any future conflicts that come up."

A Newport News native, Butler received both his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Richmond. Butler is a regular lecturer on custody, adoption, divorce and professional ethics issues. He’s worked on the Virginia Trial Lawyers’ legislative committee, served on family law committees for the Virginia Bar Association and the Virginia State Bar, and is a regular in "The Best Lawyers in America."

In addition to cooking, Butler counts on golf as another outlet. He plays as often as he can, usually a few times a week, and he’s been known to take up his clubs in inclement weather.

For someone who plies his trade in the highly emotional area of family relations, Butler treasures the cordial relationships he works to maintain with lawyers. Few things are more rewarding professionally than having an adversary in one case ask him for advice in another. "I enjoy that. It’s indicative of how lawyers can and should get along."

One of the most flattering developments of his career has to do with his own family. His daughter, Player Michelsen, joined his firm after she graduated law school. "I was amazed he had been able to do what he had done for so long. He’s so organized, such a hard worker, but he never wastes his time on something that’s not worthwhile or important," says Michelsen. She also sees him living by example: Butler and her mother divorced when she was a child but the two maintain a supportive relationship, something Butler encourages for his clients.