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Hi everyone, I’m Dr. Michael Mantell with another edition of Family Law Matters with certified family law specialist Bonnie Rabinovitch Mantel, owner and managing partner of the Primus Family Law Group. Hi Bonnie. Hi Michael, as always it’s a pleasure to do these segments with you.

I know and each one of them is so informative. Let’s cut right to it. A couple of days ago I read that Dr. Dre and his wife of 24 years, Nicole Young, who is an attorney, have essentially filed for divorce.

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Dr. Dre is worth about 800 million dollars and they have no prenup. I think it might be interesting for our listeners who are considering getting married or are looking at divorce and thinking, my goodness, I don’t have a prenup either, to get some guidance from you about this whole idea of prenup, the role you and Primus Family Law play with arranging them and how they impact divorce. Well Michael, a prenup is essentially a contract two people decide to make in contemplation of their marriage.

So what that means is the contract is only enforceable if they actually get married. And you as two adults can contract to do almost whatever you want with respect to the property you already have and the property you may acquire during the marriage. It also allows you to decide in advance what things you may do with respect to spousal support or bank accounts or custody and visitation.

But it will not let you, for example, waive child support. Things that are already contrary to the law you’re not going to be able to do in any contract, let alone a premarital agreement. What role does Primus Family Law group play in arranging them for people who want to come in and say, hey we want to be sure we have that? Well it’s not necessarily arranged, it’s drafted.

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It’s a contract. So it’s words, legalese, and you usually sit, you know, if you’re representing, let’s say, the one who wants the prenup, you sit with that person and determine what they are looking to do, what the assets they’re trying to keep out of what eventually becomes the community estate, and what assets they’re willing to put into the community estate. Understand, Michael, that in California the presumption, we start out with anything you got during the marriage is community property.

That’s the presumption. Now there are ways around that presumption, but that’s where we start. So a lot of people who, let’s say, either get married later in life or get married, you know, with inheritance or not necessarily inheritance, but money they have before they get married, they have a right to say, look that’s mine.

I don’t want to necessarily contribute that to the community pot or any money I make from that, because that separate stuff remains separate if you had it before you were married, but it can get muddied along the way. And in doing a contract before, you protect those assets that you want to protect. Nicole Young, who is an attorney, I don’t know what kind of attorney she is and what her specialty is, but I suspect that somehow going into that marriage with a super rock star like Dr. Dre, who is now worth about 800 million dollars, she thought somehow that a divorce would never happen.

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But what would you suggest to a couple who has that kind of financial resource to go into a marriage with or without a prenup? Well, Michael, like you said, they were married for almost a quarter of a century. So chances are Dr. Dre, 25 years ago, didn’t have what he has now, and maybe 25 years ago, Mrs. Dr. Dre did not, herself was not an attorney. Or, you know, the people when they get married in their 20s have nothing.

They are just starting out. So a lot of people figure if we’ve built it together, we should share it together. And that is often the case.

I, myself, don’t have a prenup. And it’s my 19th anniversary today, and it’s also my… Thank you. It’s also my second marriage.

So, you know, you think about these things, and when I got married the second time, didn’t really have anything. Everything we’ve done, we’ve done together. So why would I… There was nothing to prenup.

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A lot of people who start out a little later, like if, for example, God forbid, I get divorced now and I have, let’s say, a home or a business, I would think twice about getting into a marriage without a prenup, especially if you own a business. Because every dollar you make from that business from the day you get married is community money. Doesn’t matter if your spouse worked in the business, doesn’t matter.

It’s considered community money, you know, that presumption. So you may want to think twice about leaving that unexposed. And if your spouse or your future spouse loves you and understands reality and realistic odds of divorce, I would think any intelligent person would say this is okay.

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Because if you do this right, you can often do it jointly and not cut somebody out, you can protect that person as well to a degree. You know, we’re willing to do x, y, and z if we’re married this long or if we’re married that long, so that you don’t have to have this fight at the end of the day, God forbid, you get divorced. That’s another good thing.

So do you think that with the headline news like this of Dr. Dre and Nicole Young, do you think that people read those things and say, you know, I’d better call and find out whether or not private family law thinks it’d be a good idea for us to have a prenup? You think that’s going to increase now? I don’t know if it’ll increase. Premarital agreements are sketchy in the sense that, you know, because they are robbing one person, usually one person of significant rights they may be entitled to, that they don’t even know when they get married. Remember, it deals with future stuff as well.

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It requires a lot of hoops to go through. Everybody’s got to have their own attorney. Everybody’s got to understand there’s got to be several writings that the person who is giving up these rights knows and understands that they are giving up these rights.

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So it can be a lengthy process and you have to do it within certain time frames in order to have it done well enough in advance of the marriage that the person whose rights are being affected does not feel that they were coerced or there was some undue influence or pressure. These are all specific legal language words that have to go in there. Not a lot of attorneys do it because it does require the plugging of as many unforeseen holes as possible, which can be difficult.

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We do it because we have over a decade of experience doing it. In fact, when I first came into family law, I started out as a paralegal and one of my first tasks was to do research and write and figure out the best way or the most holes that could be plugged in a premarital agreement. And I’ve kept that template that we’ve updated since.

So that’s, you know, 16 years of experience in doing those. So if someone has an issue, a concern, promised family law from beginning to end can help them come up with their own concrete solutions to those concerns. And that’s why we don’t we don’t call necessarily divorce lawyers.

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We’re rather matrimonial attorneys. You do it from beginning to end. And we can even, we’ve now started being able to do some basic limited estate planning.

Like if you, you know, at the end of the case you’ve got a will that just needs to be modified because, you know, you’re divorced and now you’re changing beneficiaries. We can do that as well. So we can take you from nuts to bolts.

If people have some questions about prenups or any of any of the other steps along the matrimonial legal process, how can they be in touch with Primus Family Law Group? They can reach us at 619-574-8000 or www.primusfamilylaw.com. But Michael, one other thing I wanted to say about the Dre situation. They have been married 25 years. That is ultimately, in California, a long-term marriage.

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And even though, even though the wife has her own work and obviously works as an attorney, spousal support will still be an issue based on the length of their marriage and if Dr. Dre actually makes, well, you know, a lot more. And so just because she has her own job and may be able to support herself, it may not be to the extent of the marital lifestyle. And so not only will he be in on the hook to pay spousal support, but because it’s longer than 10 years, it could be a permanent order.

In fact, in fact, she is asking for spousal support. I guess if you were married to someone who has 800 million dollars, I might call Bonnie Rabinovitch-Mantel at Primus Family Law and say, hey, Bonnie, I’m an attorney, but I need your help. There’s 800 million dollars here.

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Well, that’s his worth. That, she gets half of his worth. But she also gets spousal support based on ongoing income.

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Two different streams there, Michael. We’re not worried about her. No.

Okay. So give us the phone number and the website again to be in touch with you. 619-574-8000 and www.primusfamilylaw.com. Certified family law specialist, Bonnie Rabinovitch-Mantel.

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No relationship. The owner and managing partner of Primus Family Law Group. Thanks so much, Bonnie.

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See you next time. Always a pleasure to inform and help.