Divorce Laws Are Unfair to Men, ‘Sexist’ Attorney Says : Justice: Lawyer specializes in pleading case for males. He wants to force ‘gold-digging’ wives to go to work.

For Doug Page, sexism sells.

Page, 63, a divorce lawyer in the posh Bay Area suburb of Walnut Creek, openly appeals to men who feel victimized by their wives and angry at the legal system.

“The divorce court, in my view, is a place where the money a man earns is taken and given to a woman,” Page says.

From the San Francisco Yellow Pages to Joan Rivers’ guest chair, Page has cheerfully advertised his practice as “Divorce for Men Only” and himself as “Man’s Best Friend in Divorce Court.”

Page is quick to mention the bitterness left by his own three divorces and to attack the motives and character of the suburban housewife who demands support from a former husband.

One of his press releases trumpets: “Page abhors the gold-digging, country-club tennis-playing, bridge-luncheon wife who wants life to stay the same after a matrimonial break,” and, “There is a negative side to women, their bitchy, greedy, savage side that wants to quit working. I specialize in representing men who are dealing with gold-diggers. We force them to go to work.”

But Page claims he is not actually sexist--it’s just that charges of sexism are “good for business.”

“Insofar as being called a sexist reinforces my logo, I like it,” Page says.

He says he has attracted many clients by taking “inflammatory” positions on talk shows. He uses the airwaves to tell “horror stories” like the one about a doctor who owes two wives $6,000 a month in alimony out of a $7,000 monthly income.

He says California’s divorce laws are unfair to the typical client he sees: a well-paid man with a dependent wife.

“The whole divorce law is based on the assumption that a man or a woman works equally hard to amass a fortune,” Page says.

If a woman without a paid job actually backs up her husband, he says, “then she is contributing.” But, he adds, “there are a lot . . . who are ill, who are alcoholics or cocaine sniffers.”

He also says the emotional toll of the breakup of a marriage is also greater for men than for women.

“I think men tend to suffer alone and in silence,” Page says, “and as a consequence they’re emotionally immobilized.” He says women can recover faster because they have more friends and confide in others more easily.

Page, who is a former mayor of Walnut Creek, founded Divorce for Men Only in 1982 and now has two partners. Each partner handles about 35 cases at a time, he says. According to a client, Page’s services cost $175 an hour.

The firm’s style of advertising may be unique in the United States, according to several attorneys who also say it borders on discrimination. It stays within the law only by offering more quietly to represent women as well.

C. Rick Chamberlin, head of the Northern California chapter of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, says a sizable number of men in divorce court think “the system is rolling over them.”

Do many men in divorce cases want a lawyer who verges on sexism?

“Yes,” says Chamberlin.

One Page booster is client Doug Pendleton, an East Bay police officer who has joined Page on the talk show circuit after three years in litigation with his former wife.

Pendleton’s side of the story is that his former wife has harassed him with lawsuits on charges she cannot prove, including a claim that he sexually abused his 1-year-old daughter. He says he has been cleared of that charge, but fighting it left him angry at a court system that seemed to presume he was guilty.

“I’m an abused person,” he says. “The law’s supposed to protect me equally and it doesn’t.”

But Page’s rhetoric is criticized by Gloria Allred, founding partner of a Los Angeles firm that has argued many women’s rights cases.

She says Page might as well advertise a preference for clients who are white.

“I don’t think gender or race or religion should be used to increase profits,” says Allred, who has appeared on talk shows with Page. “He’s riding the crest of a shallow response from men: ‘We have our rights too.’ ”

Page says he is actually “on the side of independence” for women. But to him, that means women should support themselves with jobs after divorce, demanding less of their former husbands.

Such a view doesn’t qualify Page as a feminist to Helen Grieco, executive director of San Francisco’s National Organization for Women.

She says Page fails to take into account the value of a woman’s public and private support for a man in a marriage, even if she has no paying job.