Architect marries design concepts that level the playing field in divorce cases.

Imagine you are a client in the throes of a messy divorce. You have been sitting in a stark white reception area waiting for an inordinate amount of time for your spouse's attorney to call you into a conference room. You lift your head to see through the clear glass walls of that conference room, and notice your spouse is still in hysterics, pulling tissues out of a leather wrapped box. You turn back to the table in front of you, notice a second leather wrapped tissue box, a jar full of gourmet lollipops.

If this scenario makes you squirm, architect Tom Krizmanic, associate at Studios Architecture, would be pleased to learn he had done his job right.

Nancy Chemtob, founding partner of Chemtob Moss Foreman & Talbert LLE--a matrimonial/family law firm on 5th Avenue and 54th street--recently contracted the architect to redesign the firm's offices.

After renewing a lease for 11 years, Chemtob decided she wanted to revamp the office and add seven staff offices that would prime the way for future expansion. She spent over 100 hours researching architects and their projects before deciding on Krizmanic. She felt that Krizmanic--who was the mastermind behind such high profile projects as the Bloomberg building and the International Film Center (IFC) building--had a nontraditional style that would help her realize her design vision for the office. That vision, to make the office "warm, but intimidating," simultaneously giving a comforting home field advantage to her clients, while scaring their "adversaries" and keeping them from "fully relaxing during a deposition or four-way conference."

Chemtob, who is the first to admit that the nature of her work is a bit macabre to begin with, and that only "5% of my clients are happy to be in my office" has no qualms about sharing her Draconian design methods with anyone who asks. Client,s who include a slew of wealthy Manhattanhites in distress, top notch celebrities and a few billionaire hedge fund owners, have lain down $7500 to a million dollars a pop at Cherobs feet to help her nail down their possessions, expect a few parlor tricks, she said.

When Krizmanic first walked into the office he was immediately impressed by the transparent conference rooms and offices, a feature he had previously attributed to his financial clients offices. He worked with the bones of the offices, then stripped the molding and tacky red cherry wood furniture.

The piaz de resistance of the intimidating side of the divorcing couple's paradigm is a second conference room with a 13 and a half foot white stone table and white leather chairs lie ontop of a dark black floor.

"It feels odd to be in there. Like something from the future. Almost like you can have an operation on the table," Krizmanic said.

The intensity of some of the design elements are balanced with some more comforting features, muted paints on moldings, and warm patterns inlaid in the stone and wood surround the office.

"As a divorce attorney I am dealing with people's most precious assets, their money and their children. There is this feeling that I have worked my whole life for this, now I want to be sure that it is in good hands. The most important thing I can do for them to give them confidence in my ability to take care of their assets is to make sure they are getting the best services, to pay attention to the details of things," Chemtob said.