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“The court doesn’t care who was mean.” That’s not a throwaway line, according to Beverly Hills divorce attorney Nikoo Berenji, it’s one of the biggest blind spots she sees parents walk into family court with, and it can quietly sabotage an otherwise strong custody case.
In this conversation, Nikoo, Senior Counsel at Berenji & Associates and a 20-year veteran of high-net-worth, high-conflict divorce litigation, breaks down exactly what judges weigh when deciding custody, and what doesn’t move the needle at all, no matter how unfair that feels. She walks through a real case where a mother spent enormous time and money building a case around her ex’s past absence as a parent, only to watch it backfire because the court only cares about what’s best for the child going forward, not who was the “better” spouse in the past.
She also shares a case where a court took the rare step of giving a father six months of primary custody to reset a relationship that had been damaged by alienating behavior; proof that judges are paying closer attention to alienation than ever before.
Whether you’re early in your custody case, deep into a years-long battle, or trying to figure out why your strategy isn’t working, this episode reframes what “winning” in family court actually requires.
WHAT YOU’LL LEARN:
✅ Why proving your ex was a bad spouse rarely helps your custody case — and can actively hurt it
✅ The one best-interest factor that quietly decides more cases than people realize
✅ A real case where alienating behavior led a judge to remove children from their primary caretaker for six months
✅ How false or exaggerated domestic violence claims get used as a “silver bullet strategy” — and why it can backfire
✅ Whether courts are getting smarter about recognizing parental alienation tactics
✅ Why interrogating your kids after time with the other parent can be used against you
✅ The boundaries you need around discussing legal matters when kids are in the home
✅ Why a detailed, specific parenting plan prevents more conflict than any argument ever will
✅ The “therapy clause” that can eliminate one of the most common sources of post-divorce conflict
✅ Signs your child is struggling, even if they seem like they’re handling everything fine
✅ A simple daily practice Nikoo recommends to every client, no matter how skeptical they are at first
ABOUT NIKOO BERENJI:
Nikoo Berenji is Senior Counsel at Berenji & Associates Divorce Lawyers, a Beverly Hills family law firm marking more than two decades of practice focused on high-net-worth, high-conflict divorce and custody cases. Before family law, Nikoo built her career in corporate law and government criminal practice, graduating from UCLA and earning a full scholarship to Berkeley Law, where she also served as a federal judicial extern to the Honorable Judge S. James Otero before starting out as an associate at Latham & Watkins LLP, one of the largest law firms in the world. That combination of corporate, criminal, and family law experience shapes how she approaches the emotionally charged, financially complex cases her firm handles, many of which involve narcissistic dynamics between spouses who are highly successful in their professional lives. Nikoo is also an adjunct professor at both UCLA School of Law and USC Gould School of Law, and she and her team work with clients across the country and around the world, with a particularly heavy concentration of cases in Southern California.
