One of the hardest aspects of dealing with lawyers is hiring one. You simply don’t know who is a good hire. There is no doubt this difficulty exists when looking for prenuptial lawyers.
After all, you don’t hire a divorce lawyer or prenuptial lawyer every day. Who should you hire?
If you’ve been divorced already, you may or may not wish to hire your last lawyer – depending on how that divorce went for you.
But even if your last divorce lawyer did a decent job, do they prepare prenuptial agreements often? Are they up-to-date with the latest prenuptial agreement laws?
Why Should You Seek Out Prenuptial Lawyers for a Prenup Agreement?
Most people think you need to wealthy in order for an investment in a prenuptial agreement is worth it. This is a myth.
If you make a healthy income or have significant assets, a prenuptial agreement may be right for you – especially if you earn or have more than your significant other.
Another unfortunate prevailing attitude is that getting a prenuptial agreement is a defeatist, pessimistic, and cynical view toward upcoming nuptials.
In my view, this is the wrong way of viewing prenuptial agreements. Anyone who enters a marriage believing 100% it will not end in divorce is not being objective. No marriage is a sure-thing. On the flip side I certainly don’t believe dwelling on marriage failure either. All I’m simply saying is if you’re even a little objective, everyone getting marriage must acknowledge there is a chance it could fail.
Moreover, many cultures view marriage more as a financial arrangement than an emotional bond. In my view, practically speaking, marriage in the West is also a financial arrangement – whether it’s discussed or not.
Therefore, given marriage is in fact a financial arrangement, it makes sense to take steps to protect any financial advantage you’re bringing to the relationship. This is what prenuptial agreements are designed to do.
One Fast Way to Get a Prenuptial Agreement
Ever since the Internet hit critical mass, there have been 3 ways to get a prenuptial agreement prepared. They are:
- Hire prenuptial lawyers in your area.
- Find a boilerplate prenuptial agreement form for sale and fill in the blanks.
- Hire a prenuptial lawyer service to prepare a prenuptial agreement over the Internet.
There are advantages and disadvantages to each approach.
The main advantage to hiring a local prenuptial lawyer is you get the in-person service. However, you pay dearly for that personal time. In my view, the only time hiring a prenuptial lawyer makes sense is if you have great wealth and/or a complex situation. If this is you, look for a family law lawyer to create a specialized prenuptial agreement to meet your needs specifically.
The only advantage with a boilerplate prenuptial form where you fill in the blanks is the cost. You can find blank legal documents for very low cost. However, you will have no idea whether the boilerplate prenuptial agreement will hold up in court or how to complete it. As you can tell, I’m not a huge fan of fill-in-blank boilerplate prenuptial agreements.
The third way of hiring prenuptial lawyers is to use a prenuptial agreement legal service that has family law lawyers on staff who work with you. The three advantages of hiring a prenuptial lawyers through an online service include:
- it costs less than hiring a lawyer on your own;
- fast-service (you can often pay for a 2-day express prenuptial agreement preparation); and
- you get actual legal input in the preparation of your prenuptial agreement (versus using a fill-in-the-blank boilerplate document).
Unless you financial situation is extremely complex, I like the idea of hiring prenuptial lawyers through a Internet legal services provider. Obviously you won’t know if your situation is too complex – but the online legal services provider will let you know if you’d best be served by hiring your own lawyer.
Who Prepares Prenuptial Agreements Through the Internet?
There are many online legal service providers offering services over the Internet these days. Some are great, some are not so great.
The one service that is one of the most popular and offers a wide array of services is LegalZoom. This service was founded by lawyers and has lawyers in its employ. In fact, due to their volume of work, they have prenuptial lawyers who are knowledgeable in that area of law who will work with you in preparing your prenuptial agreement.