I swear, you cannot make this stuff up:

A little-noted side effect of the property boom of the past decade has been the real-estate-enabled divorce. Home values might have slid in some markets, but in the New York City region, where prices remain high, divorce professionals like therapists and lawyers, along with real estate brokers, say unhappily married couples are cashing in appreciated homes to underwrite a split.
ìThe equity that there is in real estate is one of the impetuses why there are so many divorces,î said Nancy Chemtob, a Manhattan divorce lawyer, adding that the net worth of her clients has doubled in the past three years mainly thanks to real estate. The price of the average Manhattan apartment was $1.3 million as of June, up 7 percent from a year ago, . . . [. . .]
Economists are familiar with this phenomenon. Even though divorce rates are declining over all, as far back as 1977 the economist Gary Becker showed that couples experiencing any unexpected, drastic rise in net worth are at risk of divorce. (The same holds true for a drastic decline in net worth.) [. . .]
And then there are cases in which couples decide a divorce settlement would ultimately be too costly because of the on-paper appreciation of their property.
One New York real estate executive, who has separated from his wife and would not speak on the record because he is unsure if he will divorce, said most of his peers in the industry who are unhappily wed seem to be staying put. They donít want to carve up the real estate portfolios they bought or built during the boom.
ìI know plenty of people who are enormously wealthy and just donít want to cut it up,î he said. ìThey find it hard to divide the real estate.î

Decisions, decisions, decisions! ;^)

So, Republican Texas Supreme Court Justice Nathan Hecht obtains a discount on his legal fees from Chip Babcock of Jackson & Walker for his successful defense of Hecht last year in the dispute with the Commission on Judicial Conduct over his endorsement of then U.S. Supreme Court nominee, Harriet Miers. That gets Justice Hecht an ethics complaint and a possible criminal investigation by the Travis County District Attorney’s office.
Meanwhile, Democrat Bill White, the Mayor of Houston who is almost certainly going to seek a statewide office in a year or two, leans on local law firms to provide free or heavily discounted legal work for the City of Houston, most of which helps Mayor White’s political aspirations. That gets Mayor White a glowing article (see Anne Linehan’s report here) in the Houston Chronicle.
What am I missing here?