Speaker 1more and more people are getting prenups you said
Speaker 2to me that a lot of people contact you these days asking for you to help with prenups one of the interesting things we were talking about before we started filming was it's really uncomfortable to turn to your partner and ask them for a prenup i know a
Speaker 1lot of people say that and i think it's a question of how you enter the conversation again like you know i guess because i get paid to talk and i'm used to talking sometimes about difficult things with the judge or revealing you know things that are hard to reveal about someone and trying to make sure that they're not viewed negatively even though they might have behaved negatively so i think prenup it's all about how you bring up the conversation and and my preferred entry point for a prenup when i talk to someone is every single person who gets married has a prenup it's either written by the government or it's written by the two people who love each other more than the other eight billion people in the world i personally think you're going to have to make sure that you're not going to have to make sure that you're not that the two people in a marriage are better qualified to create the rule set of their marriage than politicians they don't know especially when you consider the nature of politicians they won a popularity contest they managed to offend as few people as possible and they change constantly so you're signing up for the most legally significant thing you're ever going to do other than die with a rule set that no one ever explained to you in advance and that can be changed by by people who don't know you based on who won a popularity contest okay that seems smart to you or or did the two of you decide what the rules are going to be and then starting from the beginning which is where you are if you're doing a prenup because you're about to get married okay then you live your life in accordance with that rule set together you're not going to be waiting from it or when a red flag goes up like you go hey how come you're doing it that way remember we have that rule set and so i i like that i think prenups i think prenups even having a conversation about a prenup i think is a very healthy exercise for a couple i cannot tell you how many people since our first conversation have stopped me on the streets of new york city and said i got into the coolest conversation with my girlfriend about prenups and marriage after i saw you and steven talk i've had i've had probably like two people a week say that to me it's it's a very i always say to these people i'm like you do weird stuff in bed like you're watching diary of a ceo in bed it's like it's because you know there's other stuff like i'm not great on the shower thing but i'm in bed you don't you know it's i like steven too but that's not the time maybe it is but they i guess it is anytime's a good time please don't but they know i'm not trying to hurt you i know you broke seven million i don't want to screw it up but i i i do think that there's a lot of there is um there is something to this conversation and i do think sometimes like you know look you're in a relationship you've had a hard conversation with your partner yeah and when you're in it it's not fun and you kind of go like how are we ever going to get out of this is this how it's going to be now like we're just we have this feeling and it's like awkward and it's weird and then you make it through it and then the next morning you wake up and maybe things are still a little weird or something but like oh yeah and then i like to believe that then there's this feeling of like hey we did that thing like that thing was a little weird it was a little hard we lost the plot but then we got it back and we're still here look at us yeah look at us like yay go us you know i think there's real value in that i think that again the hard thing to do and the right thing to do are usually the same thing it's hard to talk
Speaker 2about when this ends it's actually the thing i'm proud of most of my relationship is exactly what you just described there i'm not proud of our relationship being perfect because it's not i'm proud of how imperfectly it is and how we continually resolve the conflict with without coming out the other side resenting each other we come out the other side proud of each other we're like you know that meme where i think it was the hot ones mean where they're like look at us who would have thought yeah and that's like the thing that my girlfriend turns to me and says continually is i'm so proud of how much shit we've got through yeah because she she refers to it like the roots have got even longer and going back to your conversation about prenups it reminds me of what we were talking about earlier about the fact that we're not perfect and that's why people don't want to confront it
Speaker 1because you tried to get a stand at a wedding convention as a divorce yeah yeah yeah yeah so i so i want to say one thing about what you said before that because i your verbiage is very interesting to me because you said you know in my relationship you know we're not it's not perfect but i'm proud of x y and z and i have to tell you like i i don't know that sounds pretty perfect like i think that things are imperfect like and that's that's perfect like i've there's no such thing as a perfect relationship like ever and that's perfect like it's perfect like it i i genuinely believe we're perfect like i think we're all flawed and we're perfect like because we're authentic we're real so so i i think that's a really important if people if perfection is the standard we will all fall short i think the reality is that we are all perfectly imperfect and that's really beautiful but yes the the the wedding so so in in in in the united states i don't know in the uk but in the united states we have these things they're called wedding bazaars or wedding expos or wedding fairs and it somebody came up with this and it's a brilliant business move which is you rent a gigantic hall or a small hall depending on where some of them are done at like giant convention centers and you know people who are associated with the wedding industrial complex you know they pay to have a booth so there's photographers there's bakers there's and and you know every table has like something the photographers have different pictures the cake people might have like little samples of cake you know there's all the little grab bags and things that people give out as wedding gifts there's you know uh different uh travel things related to your honeymoon and where you might go there's different web websites for you know your registry like there's so many wedding related wedding adjacent businesses this is a multi-billion dollar industry so i reached out to like four or five different smaller and bigger wedding expos and i said in some and substance i'd like to get a table and they said great photographer baker what do you do and i said oh i'm a lawyer and i i do divorce and family law but it's just going to be themed around prenups it's not going to be in any way negative about marriage it's going to be you know just a congratulations on your engagement have you talked about a prenup and then i'll have brochures and things and you can you know make sure that they pass muster that i don't say anything that would be offensive to anyone i don't want anyone to be uncomfortable any other vendors to be uncomfortable but there's literally hundreds of vendors at this thing so there's no reason not one wedding expo would rent a table to me they refused my money they would not take it they would not take it no matter how flowery i said i'd make the language no matter how respectful to the institution of marriage i said i would be they would not let me buy a table they wouldn't take my money and those tables are not cheap it's thousands of dollars to get a table at wedding expo they would not
Speaker 2take my money even though almost 60 of people end in divorce and it's like a almost an inevitability the probability is yeah there's going to be a conversation about how we
Speaker 1separate as i've said before every single marriage ends it ends in death or divorce the majority of them end in divorce the majority of them end in divorce why wouldn't you allow me to have a table that just says if you'd like to have a prenup here i'm not even trying to sell a prenup on you like you're getting engaged you need a prenup it's just have you talked about a prenup and information about that they would not even let me in the room and i because because it shatters the illusion it's reality they don't like reality they don't see reality as what it is which i think by the way is quite romantic i think there's something very nice about talking to your partner about you know what i'm afraid of losing you i don't want to lose you to death even though i know someday i have to but i don't want to lose you to divorce either but man almost 60 of marriages end in divorce and if we got divorced like what would we be like i hope we wouldn't hate each other like i hope i'd still love you and care about you or i'd still want you to be well even if you left me i wouldn't hate you like i don't have one ex-girlfriend that i go man i hate that person like i wish all of them joy i hope they're all happy like our our chapter together ended but i wish all of
Speaker 2them joy people don't like to go into things without optimism though and the the conversation around should we get a prenup almost sounds like i think we're gonna break up someday i think
Speaker 1you can hear it that way yeah but i don't think it has to be that i agree with you about the optimism i think people would prefer to look at the bright side of things and to be optimistic and i am not suggesting like i don't believe in fairy tales i'm a realist that doesn't mean i get up every day just thinking about nothing but death and divorce and how like that's not life is beautiful and life's meant to be lived and like what you don't want to sit like i'm not going to sit at a wedding and be like do you know how many percentage of this people are gonna get divorced i don't view it that way i think it's wonderful be but be realistic about things like i i don't want to get ill but i have a physical every year i go to the doctor every year like i like to know what's going on i like to be a realist i like to i don't plan on But I like knowing that I have a seatbelt in an airbag. And by the way. If my seatbelt and airbag aren't working, I would like to know in advance because I'm driving as if they're going to work. If you told me, by the way, Jim, your seatbelt and your airbag aren't working, I would drive very, very, very carefully, right? So I think it's the same thing. Like just we can't have an honest conversation and be optimistic.
Speaker 2Divorce in the U.S. is very different from divorce in the U.K. And I actually learned – well, I think it is. I learned this from watching several things. But one video comes to mind from a couple of weeks ago. You'll know the case. There's a black actor who is currently posting a lot on his social media about how his wife is like chasing him down for child support. Oh, yes. Yes.
Speaker 1I don't remember his name. I'm bad at celebrity names. Unless I represent them. But yes, I know who he is.
Speaker 2And he said on a couple of shows, but he went on his Instagram and said like my wife who I've broken up with. Yeah. Who like basically doesn't really have a job at the moment or is making some money from some Instagram. Yeah. Is she's got this like pack of lawyers who email me and demand to see my bank statements because I've been doing well lately. I've got a couple of new movies and stuff. And she wants to make sure she gets more money for me and the kids based on his success. And I never realized it was like that. I never realized that.
Speaker 1Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. It's modifiable. It's modifiable. Child support, for example, is modifiable every three years when there's a 30% change in income up or down.
Speaker 2So if I have a wife and then – We have four kids and then I break up with her. And when I break up with her, I'm making a million dollars a year. And then I'm making a hundred million dollars a year. Goes up. Child support goes up. To like what? What are the numbers? Depends on the percentages.
Speaker 1In New York, one child is 17%, two is 25, three is 29, and four is 31% of your gross income. Of my gross income? Your gross income. Less FICA, 0.0765. Social Security, Medicare.
Speaker 2If my gross income is a hundred million dollars.
Speaker 1So theoretically, there are caps on the combined. Combined parental income. Everywhere. Yes, pretty much. But judges have a tremendous amount of discretion based on a variety of factors, including things like what was the lifestyle of the children during the marriage? What are the reasonable needs of the children? Like celebrity divorces, I will tell you, there are some legitimate separate needs that celebrities – the children of celebrities need. Like, you know, security, for example. What's the biggest challenge? Child support payments you've ever heard of? Well, I mean, Diddy had, I think it was $20,000 a month for a period of time. He's kind of a well-known one, and it was very well publicized. The most I've ever had in a case is I had a client who got $65,000 a month in child support. But it covered a lot of things. It covered a portion of private school tuition. It covered a security detail. It covered, you know, these were very, very high net worth, you know, public figures.
Speaker 2What kid needs $65,000 a month? Well, the kid doesn't get the money. The parent who has primary physical custody gets the money. And they can do with it whatever they want. Correct. So they could go spend it in Vegas. Correct. That's not fair. You should have to provide receipts.
Speaker 1Well, what I've always said is, I mean, first of all, the system is complicated enough without people having to provide receipts to check the math of a person and what they're spending the child support on. Like, it's already overwhelmed enough, and it's already difficult enough. Like, listen, what you're proposing would create a lot of additional work for me, so I appreciate it. But it is, from my perspective, it is a potentially very dangerous thing. What I always tell people is getting married without a prenup is a fairly risky activity. Having a child with someone is the most risky activity in relationships. In terms of the amount of emotional and financial damage a person can do to you. Have a kid. Having a kid with somebody. They can weaponize that child. They can alienate that child. They can use that child's needs to piggyback onto financial needs. There's so much stuff a person can do to torture you if they have a kid with you. And there's so much legal wrangling and rambling to do. And what I'll tell you is, you know, I have a client who spent somewhere in the realm of $100,000 in legal fees arguing over whether, Thanksgiving should begin on Wednesday and end on Sunday, or whether it would begin on Thursday morning and end on Thursday evening. Now, that person's worth, you know, $700 or $800 million. So $100,000 to them is not a lot of money. Most people, myself included, I'd just eat turkey another day. Like, it's not worth that amount of money, right, to have that argument. That's why having a kid with someone, you're opening up the door to, you know, potentially tremendous amount of battles. Whereas, if you're arguing over a $50,000 bank account and you spend $30,000 in legal fees, even if you won, you only won $20,000. If you lost, you lost significant. So it forces a certain rationality into the transaction, whereas your time with your kids, people could attribute whatever value they want to that. I've had clients who fought over miniscule things about children that, to me, would be miniscule. To them, were incredibly important.
Speaker 2You said that the two big reasons why people divorce are infidelity and money. Yeah. Is it a loss of money, a lack of money? The person goes poor?
Speaker 1That's a big piece of it. Losing money, gambling money or losing money unexpectedly, bad business and investment decisions. There was a period of time where I did a lot of divorces because people decided they were going to try to be day traders. And all of a sudden, people's, you know, they were like barring against retirement accounts. Yeah, they were learning the hard way that if you short stocks, there's almost no limit. There's almost no limit to how much money you can lose. Crypto divorces. Crypto is big. I did a couple of divorces where crypto became very important and whether it was on a hard wallet or whether it was, I mean, hiding money with crypto very, some years ago when crypto was first sort of on the scene when I really should have been buying Bitcoin because it was like, you know, $3 or $5. There was a period of time where most divorce lawyers and most judges didn't understand what crypto even was. I mean, try to explain to a 75-year-old judge who has an AOL account. I mean, try to explain to a 75-year-old judge who has an AOL email address what cryptocurrency was and the difference between Ethereum and Bitcoin, like, and why you're concerned that they might have these funds on a hard wallet. And they're looking at you going like, well, I have no idea what this is, you know. So it's tricky. I mean, these are the things we, as a divorce lawyer, one of the things that makes it a very exciting job is that we're constantly, we're getting an education in all of these things. Like, I represent, I remember I represented a surgeon and I learned everything about how surgery works. I learned how surgeons get paid, how they make money, how they hide money, what their expenses might be. And so then the next time I did a surgeon, I'm like, oh, I know this. You know, the first time I represented someone who owned a hedge fund or was a partner in a hedge fund, I had to learn about how capital accounts work and how people are paid and where you might be able to hide money.
Speaker 2Have you ever seen that where someone is like publicly thought to be a billionaire and then you look at their bank statements during a divorce and you realize that they've basically managed to hide everything. So they're basically broke. It's all in someone else's name.
Speaker 1Well, yeah, there's two permutations. One is people who are publicly incredibly wealthy and then in reality they're leveraged to the hilt and broke, like way broke. That happens a lot. And that happens a lot with celebrities. Celebrities are very often leveraged to the hilt because they had a hit record or they had a hit movie or two and then they think, oh, everything I do is going to be like this. And so they just go out and buy tons of stuff. And there's always people who loan you money, you know, especially if you're a public figure and you have some money, right, a couple of million bucks. You can get a couple million more real easy. So and then it just very rapidly and they buy everybody else. They have, you know, there's always clingers around the person, you know, the whole entourage that a lot of whom are siphoning money off of people. So there's a lot of people that look very wealthy and are dead broke.
Speaker 2And I have a lot of those. How does that play out in court when the wife finds out that their partner or the husband finds out that their wife was. They're not happy.
Speaker 1They're not happy. And it's hard. Because they think they have proof of something like they they're like, but look, here's a picture of him with a Ferrari. And it's like, right, I can show you the papers that he doesn't. He leases that Ferrari like it's this much of a car payment. Like I had a guy who had like three Bentleys and a couple of, you know, like McLaren crazy cars. And, yeah, it was all leveraged to the health. It was not he didn't own them.
Speaker 2You know, what's the second permutation of that?
Speaker 1The second permutation is when someone is is when they've.
Speaker 2Hidden the money.
Speaker 1Yeah, I'm trying to find the right adjective that they're enough of a sociopath, that they're enough of a they're enough of a malignant narcissist or they're enough of a careful planner that they have created structures that that make it almost impossible for their spouse to get anything in the divorce. So some of the things that people do in in the ultra high net worth space. For generational wealth preservation and tax avoidance. Have second order effects when they get divorced. Right. So a lot of wealthy people don't own very much of anything. They own companies that own properties and they have an interest in a trust for the benefit of their great grandchildren that owns companies that own properties that they then borrow against. Like there's their whole. is a very complex, and they pay hundreds of thousands of dollars of dollars to trusts and estates attorneys and accountants, so they pay almost nothing in taxes, and so that they will have no estate issues, they will have intergenerational wealth. Well, those things make a lot of sense from a wealth preservation and estate planning perspective, but they make a divorce really complicated, because it's no longer marital money. It's owned by this trust. It's owned by this corporation. It's owned by, I only have this percent interest in this thing, which is why we both benefited from the taxation of it. So that's where it gets like a little, what I do is a fascinating job, because we work with, you know, very, very brilliant forensic accountants who kind of go in and try to recreate whether something was done as a fraudulent transfer in contemplation of divorce, or whether something was done for good faith reasons, and, you know, was done in a way that was designed to benefit the marriage, as opposed to as divorce planning.
Speaker 2There must be scenarios where someone goes into a divorce. I think I'm divorcing you, let's say, and I think in divorcing you, I'm going to get a big payout, but it turns out in divorcing you that you get a big payout, because I've got more money than you. Yeah, that happens a lot. That happens a lot.
Speaker 1I've actually, I wrote an article for one of the women's magazines called The Last Remaining Feminist Taboo, and it talks about a lot of female clients who are paying alimony to their husbands, and it stings, you know, you could have a woman who's like a Bella Abzug. You could have a woman who's like a Bella Abzug. You could have a woman who's like Gloria Steinem-level feminist, and when she gets told, you know, that like, yeah, you got to pay him alimony, they're like, I'm sorry? What? Like, no, he's a man. He could work. Like, he could work. He's a man who'll get alimony, and you're like, no, gender is a construct, and sex is actually, you know, a construct socially, and you're a CFO of a company, and he's a really cute, long-haired musician who you married because he's like fun, you know, like, and you earn $4,000. He earns in times what he earns annually, and so you have to pay him alimony because it's just math. It's gender blind. It's just math. And they're like, yeah, no, I am not paying alimony. He's a man. He's got a strong back. Tell him to get a job. By the way, I've had men in that situation go, yeah, I'm not taking alimony. Really? They won't take it? They won't take it. Alimony is like the—
Speaker 2The spousal support. Okay, like what? But child support or—
Speaker 1No, it's for your—it's to maintain the marital lifestyle. Okay, so when you— So, for example, I marry a woman from the UK who's a physician, and now she's coming to the United States because we're in love and she's marrying me, and she is going to lose her license to practice medicine because she's coming to the United States and it's a different licensure. Okay, so now she moves here in reliance on us being married, and we're married for a couple of years, and then we divorce. She's going to need, because I now make a lot more money than her, she's going to need some money to get her back to a place. She's going to need some money to get her back to a place where she's back to her earning capacity. So, if I
Speaker 2marry Taylor Swift and we're together for 20 years, do I get half?
Speaker 1You do not get half, usually. No, no. I mean, first of all, she has too many good lawyers, I'd imagine, for you to get half. But you would certainly—I mean, there was a— How much could you get me? How much could I get you from Taylor Swift? I'd have to know how much Taylor Swift has. I also don't think she's—she's never made it down the aisle yet, has she?
Speaker 2But if I take her down the aisle, and then we stay together 20 years, and I come back to say, James, it's time. Here's what I'm going to tell you. I'm going to get you as much as possible.
Speaker 1I can't promise you anything, but I am promising you I'm going to get you as much as I can. I mean, you know, I'd have to know—I'd have to know what the finances are. Billion dollars. I would have to—she has a billion dollars? In cash. Billion dollars in cash acquired during the marriage or prior to the marriage? During the marriage. All acquired during the marriage? You get in half. There you go. You get in half. You get in half. Listen, Adele's ex-husband did very well. Kelly Clarkson's ex-husband did very well. How well did he do? It depends on how—quite well. How'd you know? Look it up. It's out there. I don't remember the exact numbers, but it's out there. The reality is, is those were people—she had her most successful tour at the time during the marriage. She had her most successful album at the time during the marriage. It's all a question of where things land in the trajectory of someone's life. If you marry someone when they're on the come-up, like Jeff Bezos, great example. Like, largest divorce settlement probably paid in history was to his ex-wife. Why? Because Amazon wasn't a thing when they got together. Right? So that was—she was there for the whole trajectory. If he got remarried now, she's not going to get half because she wasn't there. There was a premarital component to that that is significant.
Speaker 2If you got me $500 million from Taylor Swift then, would you take, like, a commission? No, it doesn't work that way. We're prohibited from doing that.
Speaker 1You're prohibited. We get paid by the hour. You're prohibited. I am an hourly wage earner, like if I worked at McDonald's. Who prohibits you? The rules. The rules that govern. And by the way, rightfully so. Why? Because you otherwise would create an incentive for the lawyer to maximize recovery for their client rather than the recovery that makes sense for their client. So, like, I've had cases where the cash payout I get for my client is lower because I want to get them more support, like child support or spousal support, or I want to get them more of the real estate rather than the payout. So, really, what we're supposed to do as lawyers— So, we're supposed to do as lawyers is not be invested in the percentage of the result. Personal injury lawyers, like if you slip and fall, that's different.
Speaker 2Last question from me is regarding me and my partner. I never want to end up in your consultation room. We never want to go there. If you were to give me one piece of advice to prevent—and it can't be don't get married—to prevent me and my partner ever ending up in your consultation room— It wouldn't be don't get married.
Speaker 1Oh, okay. What would it be? Pay attention. Just pay attention. Pay attention. Right now, you're paying attention. Like, you're paying attention. She's important to you. You're important to her. You're interested and you're interesting. You know, I would say pay attention. And pay attention to three things. The you, the me, and the we. Because those are three different things. Like, you be you because you're who she fell in love with. And don't let you go too far from shore. Like, you be you. Don't let anything in the world—don't let her. Don't let the we. Don't let any of it stop you from being you because you're who she fell in love with. And the she, right? Who she is. So there's you, there's me, there's we. So her, remember who she is. Let her be her. Like, make sure that she takes time to be her. Make sure you give space for her to be her because that's who you fell in love with. And let that person change just like you might change sometimes from time to time. And if things change too much, I'm not saying resist it, but note it. Pay attention. Say, hey, this is— This is going on. Is that a good thing? Is it a bad thing? Like, you know, let's just notice it. Let's just pay attention. And then the we. Like, the you, the me, and the we. Like, talk about, you know, pay attention to the we. Make sure we're watering the plant. Like, make sure that—that would be the only advice I'd ever give to anybody. It has nothing to do with marriage. It has to do with connection. It has to do with love. It has to do with there's a reason why you found the we, right? Like, you can be you all by yourself, and she can be her all by herself. But there's value. There's value in being we and seeing each other's blind spots. And if there's value in that, treat it like something valuable. Don't let the world, don't let your own strengths and weaknesses, don't let anything pull you off of that. Pay attention to the you, the me, and the we, and don't be afraid. The hard thing to do and the right thing to do are usually the same thing. So if it's harder to talk about it, it's harder to point it out, it's harder to say, hey, are we okay? Is everything good? Like, you know? If that's harder, do that. Lean into that.
Speaker 2What you just listened to was a most replayed moment from a previous episode. If you want to listen to that full episode, I've linked it down below. Check the description. Thank you.
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