Lisa LeFante and Jenny Bradley had known each other for 21 years before Lisa finally joined Triangle Smart Divorce. 

Apparently, some courtships take time. 

The two met through the North Carolina family law community and hit it off almost immediately. Both will happily tell you they taught the other everything she knows about family law. We have learned not to get involved in determining which version is correct. 

What isn’t up for debate is the amount of experience Lisa brings to the table. 

Lisa began practicing law in 1989 and has spent nearly all of her career in family law. She has practiced in New Jersey and North Carolina and is also admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court. Over the years, she has handled just about every kind of family law issue there is. 

These days, much of Lisa’s work at Triangle Smart Divorce focuses on divorce and separation, particularly cases involving property and financial issues. Lisa likes the numbers. She likes figuring out what is there, how it fits together, and what actually matters when a Client is trying to separate one financial life into two. 

And after doing this work for as long as she has, Lisa has very little interest in creating conflict simply for the sake of conflict. 

Her Clients seem to notice. They describe her as “real,” straight to the point, knowledgeable, responsive, and someone who listens to what they want while still giving them the advice they need. Clients specifically praise Lisa for developing a game plan and sticking to it while keeping the Client’s time and money in mind. 

That is very Lisa. 

She believes court has an important place in family law, and she has extensive litigation experience when it is needed. But she also believes going to court simply because you can is not much of a strategy. Lisa would rather understand the problem, set realistic expectations, make a plan, and help her Client get through the process as efficiently and intelligently as possible. 

Experience helps with that. Sometimes it means knowing the answer. Sometimes it means asking the question nobody else thought to ask. And sometimes it means pointing out that everyone may be making something more complicated than it needs to be. 

Lisa also serves as a Parenting Coordinator, a role that requires a particular combination of family law knowledge, patience, judgment, and the ability to remain remarkably calm while other people are decidedly not calm. Parenting Coordinators work with parents in high-conflict custody cases to help implement court orders, resolve certain disputes, and keep relatively small disagreements from becoming much larger ones. 

It is work Lisa is exceptionally well suited for. 

Tenacity has always been part of Lisa’s personality. After graduating cum laude from Lafayette College, she attended Cornell Law School, where she will happily confirm that she trudged to class uphill both ways through knee-deep snow. 

Anyone who has spent a winter in Ithaca may be willing to give her at least half of that story. 

Outside the office, Lisa and her husband, Dave, have two adult children and three cats, Mimi, Zeus and Po, all of whom remain appropriately unimpressed by all of this. 

Lisa is a New York Giants fan, loves Ocracoke, and is also part of the TSD contingent that regularly finds its way to Aruba. She is a serious foodie, which means asking Lisa where to eat is rarely a bad idea. She will have a restaurant recommendation. There is a decent chance she will also know what you should order. 

She and Jenny were once members of the Bad News Barristers, seven-time champions of the Wake County Bar Softball League. 

And then there is Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, which Lisa maintains is one of the greatest movies ever made. Her expertise in family law is beyond question. Her taste in movies remains open for debate. 

Fortunately for her Clients, it’s the first kind of judgment that matters most. 

Lisa has spent her career learning how to cut through the noise. She knows when a problem needs a fight, when it needs a solution, and when everyone may just be making it harder than it needs to be. 

Lisa brings all those years of experience to one question: What is the smartest way forward from here?