Prenup use keeps rising and that means advisors and lawyers need to work together

Prenup usage continues to rise as more couples consider in advance the consequences of a marriage breaking apart. And when it comes to those often emotional discussions, the best outcomes for all parties generally occur when financial advisors and attorneys successfully work together.

Prenuptial agreements have risen 62% over the past decade and now involve nearly 40 million Americans. According to a 2023 Harris Poll, 41% of Gen Z and 47% of millennials who are engaged or have been married said they entered a prenup, up from roughly 8% in the 1990s.

InvestmentNews sat down with divorce and custody attorney Rock Rocheleau from Right Lawyers to learn why prenups are on the rise, as well as the best way wealth managers and lawyers can combine skills to take care of their clients. 

InvestmentNews: Why has there been such a dramatic rise in prenups? 

Rock Rocheleau: A few things are happening at the same time that are pushing prenups into the mainstream. First, younger people grew up watching their parents get divorced at record rates, we're talking around 60% of marriages. That's shaped how they think about marriage. Divorce isn't the shameful secret it once was. ‘Till death do us part’ has quietly become ‘till divorce do us part’ for a lot of couples, and there's far less stigma attached to planning for that possibility.

Second, people are getting married later. When your parents walked down the aisle, they might have had a beat-up car and a shared checking account with $200 in it. Today's couples are showing up to the altar with houses, retirement accounts, investment portfolios, and sometimes even a business. There's simply a lot more to protect.

I've been married for 33 years. I got married when I was 22. We didn't have any assets to speak of. We opened a single bank account and deposited our checks. We still do this, 33 years later. When we bought our cars, we bought them together. When we bought our house, we were both on the mortgage and the deed. This is not the norm today. Today couples are marrying later and when they do, they don't commingle all their assets. They tend to keep them separate.  

Third, the process itself has gotten easier and cheaper. AI tools and services like LegalZoom have made it possible for couples to start the prenup conversation without spending thousands on attorneys just to explore the idea. Lower barriers mean more people are actually doing it.

InvestmentNews: Which generation is leading this prenup change? Why?

Rocheleau: Millennials are probably driving the trend more than any other group. They're practical, they've seen divorce up close, and they're not shy about protecting themselves financially. Gen Z are still too young to be driving this change. Most Gen Z's are still single.

But here's something that might surprise you, older adults entering second marriages are asking about prenups just as much, if not more. They've already been through a divorce. They know exactly what's at stake. They're coming into a second marriage with significant assets and they want to be smart about it. Some are even asking about post-nuptial agreements, which is essentially a prenup you sign after you're already married. For couples in that situation who want something more sophisticated, there are tools like Nevada Asset Protection Trusts that can serve a similar purpose.

InvestmentNews: How should financial advisors and lawyers work together on a prenup?

Rocheleau: Think of it this way, a financial advisor is planning for Plan A, and the attorney is planning for Plan B.

Plan A is the one everybody hopes for: the marriage works, the couple builds wealth together, and they hold hands through their golden years. The financial advisor owns that conversation. They bring the investment knowledge, the tax strategy, and the long-term planning that helps a couple thrive together.

Plan B is what happens if things don't go the way anyone intended. That's the attorney's lane. When a marriage ends, the question becomes: how do we protect what each person brought in, and what they built along the way? A well-drafted prenup answers that question before emotions are running high and lawyers are fighting over every line item.

The best outcomes happen when both professionals are talking to each other. A financial advisor who understands what's in the prenup can plan around it. An attorney who understands the couple's financial picture can draft something that actually reflects reality.

InvestmentNews: What are the most important parts of a prenup?

Rocheleau: There are three things that will make or break a prenup in court. First is full financial disclosure. Both parties need to put everything on the table; every asset, every debt, every account. If someone hides a property or downplays what they own, the whole agreement can be thrown out. Transparency isn't just good faith; it's legally required.

Second, each person needs the opportunity to get independent legal advice, and that needs to be documented in the agreement itself. You don't have to hire an attorney, but you have to be given the chance to. A prenup where one side felt pressured or uninformed is a prenup a judge may not enforce.

Third, timing matters more than people realize. Don't wait until the week before the wedding to slide a prenup across the table. Courts look very closely at when an agreement was signed relative to the wedding date. If it looks like someone felt pressured to sign because the venue was already booked and the guests had their flights, that's a problem. The situation the courts are looking for is whether the bride was handed the prenup the night before her big day. Did the groom hand the bride the prenup and say sign it or I'm not showing up. Putting the proverbial gun to her head because canceling the wedding would be embarrassing.  

InvestmentNews: Which parts tend to cause the most fights?

Rocheleau: Honestly? The hardest fight isn't about any specific clause in the document. The hardest fight is asking for the prenup in the first place.

That initial conversation of ‘I love you, and I also want a prenup’ is where most of the emotion lives. It can feel like a lack of trust, or like your partner is already planning for the marriage to fail. Getting through that conversation takes honesty and, frankly, some courage.

Once couples move past that hurdle, the actual terms of who keeps what, how property is divided, how alimony gets handled, tends to be more manageable. People can negotiate assets and finances when they're both approaching it practically.

One thing that's worth clarifying. Custody and child support cannot be included in a prenup. Courts won't enforce those provisions because the best interests of a child can't be predetermined before that child even exists. So at least those issues are off the table entirely. If they weren't off the table, you would see some serious fights and discussions going on in that relationship.