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Hello everyone, I’m Dr. Michael Mantell, and this is Family Law Matters with the owner and managing partner of the Primus Family Law Group, Bonnie Rabinovitch-Mantel. Hi Bonnie. Hi Michael, how are you doing today? Very well, thank you very much.

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How are you doing? I’m doing okay. Good. Bonnie, one of the things that more and more young couples getting married and even older couples getting married, focusing in on, is the issue of how to protect yourself in advance of any problems that may arise later in a marriage.

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The prenuptial agreement, as it’s called, the prenup. Primus Family Law provides that service to lots and lots of couples. Tell us about the prenup and why it’s so important for couples to consider this.

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You know, Michael, it used to be, you said it correctly, it used to be that it was an older couple that was asking for a prenup because they had stuff that they wanted to protect or that they wanted to make sure didn’t get mixed up into our community property state. But what I often tell younger people is, while you may only have a car now and maybe a little bit of a retirement account, you have no idea what you’re going to have. And if we can figure out what’s important to both of you to keep separate, gosh forbid you guys do get divorced.

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And the intention is always that this agreement sits in a drawer and never gets used, but gosh forbid you do get divorced. It saves a lot of fighting and money being spent on the fighting because it’s pretty set out how you’re going to divide whatever stuff then exists. I think it’s a game changer because it allows people to get married with an idea in their head that gosh forbid, they’re not going to have stuff to fight about, which allows people if they have children to come to more amicable resolutions, allows them to co-parent better because they’re not fighting about the stuff.

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And I think it gives them a little bit of peace of mind. And so does, is it possible 20 years later, someone says, yeah, I wrote that prenup 20 years ago, but it doesn’t apply anymore because this has happened or we’ve got this now, or we lost that, or I don’t have it. Does the prenup just fly across the boardroom no matter what? Well, it depends who’s drafting it.

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Okay, now if I’m drafting it, we’re going to try to cover as many possibilities as possible. I’ve been doing prenups 24 years. And so I’ve tried to figure out what are all the loopholes.

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Now, obviously Michael, you can’t cover everything, but we do include language. For example, you have a Honda Civic today, you trade it in for a Mercedes. Obviously we’re not putting in, we don’t know about the Mercedes yet.

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So language is usually put in that this vehicle and any subsequent vehicles. We do it so that we acknowledge a future business interest, a future retirement account, so that we acknowledge the fact that your life is hopefully going to change and get more, get wealthier. Right.

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Bonnie, are you aware, and I have a feeling I know the answer in advance, but are you aware of any data that suggests that people who have prenups are more likely to use them and divorce than people who don’t have prenups? Is divorce- I don’t actually know of the statistics, but if I had to bring a gut, my gut would say, no, it doesn’t change it at all because the prenup is not in contemplation of divorce really, it’s in contemplation of marriage because it’s only effective when you get married. So we’re not promoting divorce and it doesn’t change things in that regard. It just, in my view, in the view of my professionals who do these things, it helps people separate easier.

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If people have questions about prenups and what it means and how much it costs and how to get it, how can they be in touch with you to find out more about this? Well, they can reach us directly at 619-574-8000. Otherwise, you can reach us online at www.PrimusFamilyLaw.com. Fill out the submission form and we will reach out to you and set that consult.