BREAKING UP Can Be Easier Than You Might Imagine.

• Author: Eichner, Andrew D.

Prenuptial agreements are like insurance policies. You do the paperwork, then hope you'll never need it.

Half of marriages end in divorce within the first seven years. That's a statistic people should ponder before they walk down the aisle and say, "I do."

If you are contemplating marriage and accept the odds that you might be engaged in a nasty, costly, and emotionally draining divorce some day, you should consider a prenuptial agreement as a precaution. However, before deciding whether you are a candidate for such a document, you should understand exactly what a prenuptial agreement is and what it can and can not do for you.

A prenuptial or antenuptial agreement is a document signed by two people who intend to be married, defining their rights and obligations if and when they get divorced. A properly drafted prenuptial agreement informs the court how they want their assets and property divided up.

Many divorces are messy because the parties can not agree on who gets what. Property and asset division might involve who gets the house, stocks, and bonds and whether one party should pay the other alimony, now known as "maintenance" in most states. The prenuptial agreement defines these rights and obligations before the marriage.

Almost every person entering into an antenuptial agreement hopes to avoid a financial dispute incident to a divorce and, in many instances, to avoid having to share assets, property, or money with the person he or she is divorcing. By way of a simple example, assume that the husband has $1,000,000 in his own name prior to the marriage. A properly drafted prenuptial agreement can award that same $1,000,000 to him after a divorce, notwithstanding what he does with the money, such as purchasing a home in joint tenancy or shifting the money into other accounts. Without a prenuptial agreement, the wife might be entitled to one-half of the $1,000,000 or more, depending on the financial circumstances of the parties at the time of the divorce. Obviously, the prenuptial agreement is a potent and valuable tool that can favor the husband, protect the wife, or serve both of them fairly. It is a question of circumstances and intentions.

Traditionally, candidates for prenuptial agreements are older individuals who have amassed a substantial estate they want protected for children from a prior marriage against a new "gold-digging" spouse or a person who has an interest in a family business. These individuals want to protect their interests from an acquisitive spouse upon a divorce.

A traditional antenuptial agreement segregates the assets owned by the spouse seeking the agreement and declares that they would belong to the owning spouse after a divorce. The assets would be protected from the prying eyes of the court and from a disgruntled spouse.

With the number of millionaires rising steadily and new forms of wealth being developed every day, the candidate pool for prenuptial agreements has expanded significantly. No longer is such an instrument the domain of the older rich or the young with interests in family businesses. Almost anybody with anything they own before the marriage and wish to protect after a divorce is a candidate.

For instance, you may have written the great American novel or computer software program, but have yet to sell it to a publishing house or software company. You have an invention, a screenplay, an idea for a business, or a copyright. None of these ideas or copyrights or thoughts have yet to make you any money, but they might. In light of that eventuality, you may wish to protect the screenplay, novel, or software program from your spouse in a divorce case. A properly drafted prenuptial agreement can protect your interest and all benefits that flow from that as...