down,” observes Debra Schoenberg, a longtime San Francisco- based divorce attorney and founder of Schoenberg Family Law Group. “There are a lot of people in their late 20s, early mid-30s, who were in the right place at the right time in one of these startups, or one of these tech companies or an early investor or early employee. At a relatively young age, they have a substantial amount of wealth, and they have no interest in risking that wealth.” What many couples may not realize is that the state already has a sort of prenup for them as it decides who gets what. Drafting their own is a way for couples to take control of their financial life rather than relying on the state-imposed formula, which may not have their best interests in mind. Many couples spend more time planning for their wedding day than the marriage—a legal, financial contract—itself. As do-it-yourself law company Nolo co-founder Jake Warner and Toni Ihara write, “When you enter into the contract by saying ‘I do,’ you are subscribing to a whole system of rights, obligations and responsibilities. Unlike most other contracts, however, you never get the chance to read the terms or the fine print provisions because the provisions are unwritten and the penalties for breach unspecified. In no other area are contracting parties so in the dark.” Still, many argue against prenups, including some respected experts. In a recent column in the Atlantic , Harvard professor and best-selling author Arthur C. Brooks advises would-be spouses to take a risk on love and forgo a prenup. “A prenup might sound like simple prudence, but it is worth considering the asymmetric economic power dynamic that it can wire into the marriage,” he writes. “Some scholars have argued that this bodes ill for the partnership’s success, much as asymmetric economic power between two companies makes a merger difficult.” Schoenberg found that shocking. “I am an enormous proponent of prenups. I have been a divorce lawyer since 1985, so this is my 38th year, I’ve handled somewhere in the neighborhood of 15,000, 17,000 divorces,” she says. “When I think about the amount of money that people have spent over the course of my career to argue about the distribution of their assets and debts when they could have created this roadmap prior to the date of marriage, presumably when they hold each other in the highest level of esteem, love each other deeply and hope to spend the rest of their lives
together, as opposed to on the backend of the marriage, when there’s hurt and anger and grief and sometimes even worse feelings than that, it is without question the most logical thing to do.” Debra was thankful to have that roadmap. Finalizing a divorce can often take more than a year if not years, but she and her former husband were able to sign their divorce papers in three months. “It was definitely helpful. It just made things very, very clear cut, for instance the date of separation,” something that a couple often disagrees about, she says. “Divorces are never easy, but it did establish certain things. It paved the way to make the process a little cleaner and easier.” Prenups don’t cost much—they average around $975 in California, where they are more formally called a premarital agreement, a lot less than the price tag to dissolve a marriage in the state. At an average of $10,159, California’s the most expensive state in the U.S. to get a divorce. Schoenberg could have predicted the rise in divorces in the wake of the pandemic. After being locked up 24/7 for so long, many married couples decided to call it quits. What she didn’t see coming was the substantial rise in the demand for prenups. “People were coming here in droves saying, ‘I could die from this and therefore I’m no longer ambivalent about whether I want to make a lifelong commitment to this other person. I want to get married now and I want a prenup to go with it.” Wedded in 2006, actor Nicole Kidman and country musician Keith Urban’s prenup includes the unusual clause that he maintains his sobriety, according to Rolling Stone magazine.
In Seinfeld , George (Jason Alexander) tries to get out of an engagement by demanding fiancée Susan (Heidi Swedberg) sign a prenup.
February 2024
NorthBaybiz 49
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