Why Does Angelina Jolie Want a New Judge in Her Divorce?

In a little book called War and Peace—ever heard of it?—Leo Tolstoy wrote, “The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.” Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt must understand this better than anyone. They’ve been untangling their lives since their divorce began in 2016, a time that is both yesterday and a thousand years ago. They’ve been up, they’ve been down, there’s been war, there’s been peace, and still these warriors persist.

Just this Monday, Jolie filed in Los Angeles Superior Court to have the private judge John W. Ouderkirk removed from the case. They’ve been working with him on their divorce for at least three years (Pitt and Jolie are both divorced and working on their divorce, since the judge declared them legally single in April 2019 while they continued to hash out the terms privately in court). Jolie’s filing argues that the Ouderkirk had “failed to disclose the cases that demonstrated the current, ongoing, repeat-customer relationship between the judge and [Pitt’s] counsel,” whose name is Anne C. Kiley.

Kiley, the filing continues, “actively advocated for Judge Ouderkirk’s financial interests in moving—over the opposing party’s opposition—to have his appointment (and his ability to continue to receive fees) extended in a high profile case.”

Without getting too in the weeds during this pre-law seminar, Jolie’s side maintains that, per California law, if one “might reasonably entertain a doubt” about a judge’s ability to remain impartial, he or she can be removed from the case at hand.

Why now, three years in? Another mystery that even time may not reveal. They have a private judge and most of the proceedings are sealed, so there’s little information on what could be left to resolve, and why one side might want a new judge on the case now.

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