Mioni Family Law, APC

Lovette Mioni is a certified family law specialist who attended Southwestern Law School and opened Mioni Family Law in 2014. She has worked as a family law attorney since 2010, previously working at other firms before opening her own business. Her associate Christopher Choi attended law school at the University of Illinois before joining Mioni Family Law. Both attorneys practice family law exclusively, specializing in assisting clients with divorce and custody matters.

What is the key to building, maintaining and growing client relationships?

We try to educate our clients on what the law is and what their rights and responsibilities are, and to help them navigate the process of their case as effectively and efficiently as possible. Most clients feel so much better and so much more at ease when they have a clear understanding of the path forward.

What’s the #1 way you earn the trust and confidence of clients?

We do good work. A lot of our clients come to us by way of referrals from past clients. Trust is sometimes there from day one because they have been referred to us by a current or past client. For other clients, we earn that trust by being skilled attorneys and doing a good job for them.  

In this digital world, what’s your most effective communication technique with clients?

We use it all. We Zoom, we DocuSign, we appear at court appearances virtually (if that is what clients want), we have online portals for clients and we’re a paperless office. We fully embrace technology. For our clients who aren’t ready to also fully embrace technology, we are happy to meet them at whatever level they are comfortable with.

What is the most popular service you offer?

The vast majority of our cases are divorce cases. But we’re a full-service family law firm, so we also do prenuptial agreements, postnuptial agreements and paternity cases.

Describe your ideal client.

Clients who will take our advice—they are truly the best clients. We see their case from a 10,000-foot view. Sometimes clients are so emotionally engrossed in their emotional and legal issues, it’s hard for them to have perspective. We take the emotions out of the equation (to the extent possible) so we can help them make sound and reasonable decisions—not emotional ones. The best clients are the ones who take our advice; that’s how we get them the best results.

How do you keep stress levels low?

We try to avoid emergencies in our office. Waiting until the last minute stresses everyone out. If we have the ability to get things done right away or ahead of deadlines, we do it. We also try to operate our cases on a “big-picture” level so our clients don’t get thrown off by little issues and everyone stays on course.    

In what ways is the business model of your firm unique?

We want to move you through your divorce effectively. We want to get you the best results. We often do this by hiring private judges to handle your case. Private judges offer much quicker resolutions of your case than a traditional method of going through the Los Angeles Superior Court. You’re not stuck waiting a year or more for a trial. Oftentimes we do mediation with a private judge and resolve your case in a fraction of the time that it would take to litigate it in court.

How do you deal with clients not accepting your recommendations?

We understand that it’s hard sometimes to trust someone else with these huge issues of your finances and your children. But we are very good at what we do. So when we have a client who disagrees with our recommendations, we tell them that we disagree. Ultimately the decisions are up to the clients because they are the ones living with those decisions.  

Your advice to potential clients?

Try really hard to settle your case. Be open-minded in settlement discussions. We try to settle all of our cases outside court because ultimately that is what is best for the parties, their children and their finances. You should only go to trial when you absolutely have to. And even in those instances, use a private judge if possible. There are better divorce options than “I’ll see you in court.”   

Tell us about some of your favorite local hot spots.

We’re located in the Hollywood Riviera in South Redondo, so we’re going to go ahead and say the Riviera is our favorite local hot spot. We all pinch ourselves to be two blocks from the ocean and to have all the restaurants and shops available to us for lunch or dinner after work.