New York Law Journal, March 5, 2024 ●
Let us begin this writing/reading experience by clearing the air right from the start: the answer is “no”—this author does not believe that prenuptial agreements should be banned. We live in a free country, with free will, and the freedom to enter into contracts is a staple of American jurisprudence.
We tell our clients, rightfully so, that prenuptial agreements are intended to provide certainty to a point where the soon to be newlyweds can rest assured that issues of equitable distribution, spousal support, and rights on death will be safely walled off from the prospect of litigation, or, at least the scope of potential disputes will be limited if judicial intervention becomes necessary.
But if that is the case, then it begs the question why we keep seeing prenuptial agreements at the center of, yes, divorce litigation. There also appears to be a growing sentiment, at least in the podcast ecosystem, that prenuptial agreements may not be worth the paper they are written on.
The title of this article is designed to provoke a discussion about the viability of prenuptial agreements. A cookie cutter, redundant discussion of the elemental components of a prenuptial agreement will, in my view, get us nowhere and answer none of our questions.
Instead, we ought to look at how prenuptial agreements are being interpreted and enforced by our courts to better understand why we, as divorce lawyers, oftentimes see prenuptial agreements as uniquely complex legal instruments that are fraught with the potential for peril.
Read more on our website.