Another term for these is Premarital Agreement. The idea is to protect parties before they get married. That means you can’t sign one after you’re married, and you can’t wait until the limousine is taking you to the rehearsal dinner to get this done. Call me now, in other words.

I often speak with people, both men and women, who are reluctant to address certain financial or personal matters in a prenuptial agreement because they’re afraid doing so will cause stress or anger, or make the other person unwilling to get married.  My approach is to clearly explain what my concerns are, and why and how they have to addressed; I also tell people that if the prospective husband or wife is already putting that type of pressure on, it’s not a good sign. Being candid with clients sometimes means I tell them what they don’t want to hear, but that’s exactly what I must do. If we get started in the process early enough, typically we arrive at an agreement that is fair all the way around.

A premarital agreement is a valid document, and will be enforced by Ohio courts, if each party had his or her own attorney, if each person disclosed all his or her assets and liabilities, if it was entered into without fraud, and if neither of them was forced into signing it. For example, when someone comes to see me about a premarital agreement, I make it clear that “one lawyer can’t represent both of you. In order for you to be protected by this agreement, the other person must have his or her own lawyer in preparing it. The extra money is insignificant if it means we end up with a valid document.” In addition, any agreement that by its terms tends to promote divorce will not be enforced if the relationship ends. All these considerations mean this: you need someone who knows how to protect you.

A fundamental issue I address with clients right from the start is this: where will you be five years from now if this marriage doesn’t work out?  Related questions are these: Will you be financially secure? Will you have everything you brought to the marriage? Will you be obligated on debts that really are the other person’s responsibility? Answering these questions requires long-range planning, carefully written documents, and sometimes a very firm approach to the discussions and negotiations.  Those are the qualities I personally provide my clients.

People want and need prenuptial agreements for different reasons. Often people are getting married for the second, or third, time. The agreements are used by people of all different financial and personal situations. Some people need to protect assets they’ve acquired, and that becomes the focus of the agreement. Other people want to make sure their children from a previous marriage are fully protected if the new marriage ends. A practical consideration is that those children often are fearful the new spouse will take their interest in “mom or dad’s estate” once the marriage takes place, and so it’s common for me to have to address those fears. I have found that a meeting with the parent and the child (who often is married with his or her own children, or who doesn’t really like the new spouse) is the best way to get the issues out in the open, and then proceed to a solution. These meetings can be emotional and they sometimes force people to confront issues they’d rather avoid, but virtually always my clients later thank me for relieving the pressure and addressing issues they’d been wanting to raise but just hadn’t been able to.

I kid people and say “this gray hair means I’ve seen and heard it all.” What I’m really saying is that you get the benefit of all those experiences and knowledge.