Lawyers are seeing a ‘stunning’ rise in prenups this year — and more postnups too

The specifics of lockups and pre-IPO equity creates their own complexity. For example, if someone has been granted shares in a company prior to marriage, that equity becomes community property if the stock vests after the wedding, unless an agreement was made ahead of time.

Van Voorhis said she has already doubled the number of prenups she’s worked on compared to last year and 2026 isn’t even over. “If I wanted prenups to be the only thing I did to make a living at this point, I could probably do it,” she said. “It’s stunning.”

Recent revelations about Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s infidelity — and his reported lack of a prenup — could bring the number up even higher. “I think for younger generations in the tech industry, they’re looking at this and saying, ‘I better make sure I get one,’” Mazzei said.

The ‘Kardashian effect’

When it comes to explaining how prenups went from grounds for a bitter pre-wedding argument to a common part of financial planning, Mazzei reaches for reality TV.

“I call it the ‘Kardashian effect,’” she said, crediting the celebrity family with normalizing the practice. “For the younger generation, it’s not taboo. It’s totally not sexy or romantic, but it forces you to talk about money and finances, which is a very healthy conversation.”

AI liquidity events have brought the conversation to the fore, according to Laura Chickering, managing attorney at Fenchel Family Law (opens in new tab). “I would describe it more as a plan for your future than a plan for your divorce,” Chickering said cheerily. “Some of them are very young. It makes me feel so old when I’m talking to 20-year-olds that are getting married.”

Prenups typically involve calculating a couple’s full net worth, down to the number and the class of shares each person owns. Sometimes there may be a sticking point in regards to assets like wine collections or artwork, Chickering said. “I’ve had to argue a couple of times about courtside Warriors tickets.”

Van Voorhis theorizes it’s part of the zeitgeist among young employees at the likes of Anthropic and OpenAI. “It’s contagious: One person says ‘I’m getting a prenup,’ and then the next person’s like, ‘Well, maybe I need to get a prenup,’” she said.

Depending on a person’s role, a prenup may even be encouraged by a company’s board of directors, according to Chickering.

“When a client is a significant stakeholder in a company [and] has a controlling interest, oftentimes it’s very strongly recommended to them by their company or other board members that they secure a prenup because corporate governance is a concern,” she said.

For example, during Rivian cofounder R.J. Scaringe’s divorce proceedings last summer, he transferred 4 million shares and 6 million stock options to his wife in their settlement, which dropped his voting power from 7.6% to 4% (opens in new tab).

There’s already speculation about what could happen if Huang and his wife, Lori Huang, get divorced, given his ownership stake in Nvidia.

“I’m not surprised that they don’t have one: They were married at a time when prenups were just not very popular, and they were young when they got married, before there was any wealth creation,” Mazzei said. She assumes that a divorce would involve a complicated accounting of trusts and company equity.

Regardless of any pre-made agreement, a divorce between high net worth individuals often involves detective work, said Chickering, who works with forensic accountants and financial advisers to trace assets, which include cryptocurrency, subpoenaing bank records — up to seven years’ worth — and even cash spent on drugs or gambling.

“If a lot of money went up your nose against your spouse’s wishes, then it’s possible that you would have to reimburse the community for that expense. So, let’s say that you spent $50,000 on cocaine; $25,000 has to go to your spouse.”

Prenup, meet postnup

Less common than prenups but still relevant are postnups. These are legal financial agreements that happen after two people already said their “I dos.” Often, the timing is circumstantial.

“A lot of times, people just miss the deadline” for a prenup, said Van Voorhis. “So they enter postnuptial agreements almost immediately after the wedding.”

Those are often much less uncomfortable than the kinds of postnups that happen years into a marriage.

For example, one person could be starting a company and wanting any assets from it to be split 60-40, instead of 50-50. Or maybe a couple is already in disagreement about finances, and see a postnup as a way to settle a recurring argument, with a mediator. In some cases, it’s a long overdue conversation.

“The postmarital agreements are more awkward because now we’re talking with couples that have already been married, usually for quite some time, and they’re now just having these discussions that they probably really should have had a long time ago,” Mazzei said.

At that stage, “most of the clients that come to me for a postnup, it ends nine times out of 10 being a divorce,” she added.

Chickering has also seen a rise in postnups, but said they’re harder to enforce, as married couples are legally required to deal fairly with each other financially. “It’s always far, far better to deal with this in a premarital context,” she said.

Very occasionally, Van Voorhis will deal with a couple who wants to get a postnup in order to dissolve some of the stipulations of their previous arrangement. “They say, ‘We had a prenup when we were married 25, 30 years ago that kept everything separate, but now we want to make it all community property,’” she said. “I love doing those, because those people are super happy.”