Love, Law, and Prenups: Nicky Rooz ’07 is a top divorce lawyer in New York City

[0:00]Hello, The guest today is Nikki Ruiz, class of 2007. She's one of the top divorce lawyers in New York City. So hi, Nikki. What is family law? Hi, Tony, Thank you so much for taking the time and having me on today. Very excited to be here. And I'm again, I'm happy to talk to you about family law and divorce law. So my practice encompasses, as you pointed out, family law and matrimonial law. And these areas of law basically touch upon anytime there's a change in the family, whether you're coming together and you're getting married and you need a prenuptial agreement or information about what are the legal rights and obligations when you get married. Or unfortunately, if you're having a change in your family and you might need to get divorced, or maybe if you're not married, you have children together, you have to deal with custody issues. So we basically touch upon everything that has to do with anything related to your family and the different needs and things that might be happening or changing in your family relationships. Gotcha. What is the typical like engagement? Process level, sure. So typically it might be very ironic, but I see people at 2 very different extremes. Either they're at a very happy and exciting point in their life where they're going to get married and they want to understand what are their rights and obligations. They might be coming into the marriage with certain assets or what I see more often Times Now is people would like to have control over their lives and make decisions for themselves about what happens if, God forbid, they get divorced. So, you know, on one hand of the spectrum, I have a lot of people entering a very exciting and happy phase of their life. They're about to get married or maybe they're going to have a child together. Maybe they're thinking about moving in together and they either need a prenuptial agreement, they're going to get married. They might need a cohabitation agreement if they're not getting married yet, but they're moving in, or they might need to understand what are their rights when it comes to custody if they're going to have a child together. So in those types of cases, usually, you know, the client will get a referral to several different lawyers to talk to, to figure out not only who is well qualified in terms of experience, but who fits them personality wise, right.

[2:02]These are very personal topics that you're talking about. And so I think the personality fit between the client and the lawyer is just as important as the technical know how and skill. So, you know, again, on the one hand, there's the very happy life occasions when clients are coming to me for exciting things. And typically what happens is we'll have an initial consultation where I can learn a little bit more about the person's needs, exactly what is going on. They can share whatever information they think is relevant. And then I will typically advise them on the law, what their different options are. And based on my experience, what I would recommend, if the person feels comfortable and they want to continue to work with me, fantastic. We'll eventually sign a formal engagement letter or retainer letter. They can come on board, we can start working substantively. On the other end of the spectrum, unfortunately, is, you know, very opposite where people are coming to me because they're having a little bit more difficult transitions in their family. Whether they aren't getting a divorce, whether unfortunately, you know, there might be a domestic violence situation. Somebody needs an order of protection or they're not married and they're having, they have children together and they are now breaking out. So they have to figure out what are the custody rights. So again, similarly, you know, these are people who are usually in crises, they will usually get recommendations or they can research attorneys online to see who has the right experience for their specific circumstances. They'll do an initial consult to figure out A, does the lawyer that you're speaking with in this case B, have the technical knowledge and experience in their specific circumstances to handle their case. And then above and beyond that, you know, again, it's a very personal things that you're talking about your home, your livelihood, your children, your business, your work, potentially your freedom, right? If there's an order of protection in place, there's a criminal matter. So is it the right personality fit? Is this lawyer, does this lawyer understand what my needs and goals are? Are they as responsive in the matter that I need? Are they going to work in a manner that I work? You know, some clients are very technically savvy and can, you know, deal with a lot of things

[4:02]quickly and easily on their own. Other clients need a lot more help and, you know, perhaps a little bit more attention and a little bit more assistance in terms of even ascertaining information about their own situation. So every single person is different, every single case is different. There's no, I don't think there's a right or wrong. It's what is going to be the best fit and what's going to make the client most comfortable when they're already going through a really difficult situation. Gotcha. Like going to the client and the lawyer, they interact with each other. Like what makes it a good fit? I mean, I joke, but I think it's almost like dating or marriage itself, right? It's a combination of, like I said, do you feel comfortable with this lawyer in particular because they have the right experience? For example, you know, every family is different, but some divorces are, let's say, a little bit easier or more straightforward than others. If you come and it's just unfortunately, we we're not getting along so well and we have a general understanding of what the assets are and what we want to do with our children. I would consider that to be a relatively straightforward divorce, right? So you don't you, you should go to somebody who has a lot of experience dealing with divorces, so they are familiar with the issues, they know how to handle them. But for example, you know, I have a vast majority of my clients have a little bit something more complicated, whether it's a multi jurisdictional case where you've got presences and residences in different countries or perhaps it's a case where the assets are very complicated. There is multiple layers of corporations and trusts, you've got to trace a lot of money. We also deal with a lot of really difficult and complicated custody cases. So again, there is a big difference between my spouse and I are not getting along, but we think we can Co parent together versus, you know, maybe one or both partners has significant mental health issues. Maybe they have substance abuse issues, God forbid. You know, unfortunately we see a lot of physical, verbal, emotional, financial abuse. So if you have one of those cases where you're dealing with a little bit more or a little bit more unusual circumstances,

[6:03]going to want somebody who has that experience specifically who knows the judges that are in your county who has dealt with those issues before. So I think it's one, first of all, being confident that your lawyer and specific really knows the issues that you're dealing with specifically and understands not just the legal arguments to be made, but what impact does that really have on your life, right? And then it's just it's personality fit. You may have the best lawyer in the world for the issues that you need, but if you just don't seem to get along well or have the same working style, it's not a good fit. So I really do encourage people to talk to. I always encourage people when they come to me, I will give even referrals for them to speak to other people that I think are very well qualified. But a part of it is again, technical knowledge and expertise. Another part of it's just, do you feel comfortable with this person? Do you believe that they're going to understand your position and advocate for you in the way that you really need at a very difficult time of your life? So. When you're like, so you'll be interacting with each other for so many hours, like when they first approach you, how do you create like a welcoming atmosphere where they feel comfortable sharing a lot of things with you? I mean, for me the first question is always, I guess the two most important questions are where is the client? Where are they emotionally, physically, financially? Where are they in the journey of, you know, some people come to me, they already know the divorce is coming. They're ready for it. They are, they've thought about it. They have ideas about how it's going to look. Other people come to me, they're in extreme crises. Their spouse has just filed or they just found out, you know, that they're that the spouse wants a divorce or maybe, God forbid, they just found out that somebody had an affair. So the first thing is I need to find out where, where is this client? Where is this person in their life, in their process? What is their actual status? Which better informs for me, OK, how am I going to respond? The second thing is the first question I always ask the client is how best can I help you? What are your priorities right now? What do you think are things that you understand really well?

[8:04]What are things that you need help with? What are you struggling with? And for every case, I always inform them, here's the law, here's the potential metrics. But more importantly, I think understanding where they are emotionally as well is very helpful because like I said, a client who's coming to me that has already been thoughtful about the process, who has emotional process and warned the ending of a relationship is very different than a client who's coming to me in the middle of an act of crises. And they're not only going to have to accept and work through the fact that they're having a divorce, but they're going to have to do it in real time. And I may be one of the first people that they are talking to once they've realized that a divorce is happening. So again, just understanding exactly where the client is and adjusting how I work with them to match this, the phase that they are and also their particular personality. Some clients are very independent and know exactly what they want and they just need advice or information. Other clients need a little bit more. There's no right or wrong answer, it's just what does the client want and need and that's what we tailor around. Like from the client's perspective, like when is the best time to approach you? Is it like when things are already sort of figured out and they approach you or is it does it depend on the client like how? I think it depends on every person's situation. Again, if you're getting married and you're start or you're thinking about having a child with somebody, then you should come to me as soon as you possibly can because I think information and knowledge is very valuable. And at the end of the day, I talked to many, many people about prenuptial agreements. Sometimes I tell them, I don't think it's necessary in your case, but at the very least you should know and understand what the law is. Because I think when you're starting to get married or you're going to have a child together, you're really excited about what this means to you personally. You're about to get married to the love of your life that is wonderful and romantic. You know, you're about to have a child together. That's a really exciting event. Not a lot of people think about, well, what are the ramifications of getting married? Right. It is a romantic relationship that you want to have with someone. But on the other hand, it comes with a whole set of legal rights and obligations that many people don't know about.

[10:05]You know, for example, if you get married automatically in New York, you have a state rights. That's something that accrues to you no matter what. A lot of people don't know that, you know, also if you get married, there's certain financial obligations and duties that you have to each other that when you're thinking about a romantic relationship and perhaps maybe you've never moved in together, maybe you haven't merged your finances a lot even after you get married. A lot of people don't know what exactly are the rights. You know, a lot of people think if the assets in my name, it's mine. If we mix it, it's marital. It's very funny because I am a divorce lawyer. I myself am married. My husband is not a divorceler, He's not a lawyer at all. And even though this is my profession, what I do, I would bet almost anything that even my husband, who's married to a very experienced divorceler doesn't know what the laws are. So again, it's just, I think information and knowledge is so helpful and important for people and just even if you end up not doing the agreements, even if you know, it's just good for you to know and have that information. So if you can anticipate in advance things that are happening, come as soon as possible. My least favorite, yeah, my least favorite is I'm getting married next week. Can we do a prenuptial agreement? No, probably not because, you know, it's a little. You should have started a lot sooner. But on the other hand, I have people who come to me because, you know, it's reactionary. They may not know divorce is coming. They may not know that or an emergency may have happened. I've had a lot of cases where divorces start because perhaps there is a mental health crises that has arisen for the first time in the marriage that all of a sudden has altered somebody's behavior. Or perhaps there's a substance abuse issue that just developed, right? So those are things that people don't plan for. You know, you don't anticipate that negative things are going to happen in your life. So for those cases, sometimes you can't come early. You don't know it's happening until it's happening. It's less within your control. But my advice is always, and look, even I speak to a lot of people who are thinking about divorce, but they're not sure they haven't made a decision

[12:06]yet. I think that's a great time too, because again, marriage is about a romantic relationship between two parties. But at the same time, if you have children together, if you have businesses together, you've asked together. Part of the consideration of if we get divorced is how does that actually look for our family? And even though I you should never entirely base your decisions upon what the finances look like or what your custody rights might be, I think it's important to understand that information as you're thinking about am I going to stay in this marriage or not? Like, I hope that everybody tries as hard as they can to stay in marriages. And when people come to me, they're not sure yet. I always tell them, do do everything that you possibly can first, whether it's counseling, whether it's couples therapy, whatever it is that you can do to try to see if you can salvage the relationship, do it. But in the meantime, here's what you need to know about the law and what would happen if you actually were to get a divorce. So becoming like well informed about it, like before you get married, while you're married, well informed. The short answer is as soon as possible if you can't anticipate the circumstances. But otherwise, if you know life happens, it just does, right? Personal lives. Things happen all the time, so if you can't help it, you're gonna come when you're when you need it. But if you can help it and you can anticipate the sooner and earlier you start getting information, the better it is. Well. Like, how complicated is this body of law around marriage? Like is there like textbooks of it? Like is there like in that case of case law where it's like very goes into every nuance or is it just? So the body of law is there is a set of statutes in New York. There's two main sets of laws. There's something called the domestic relations law that governs divorces, custody. There's also something called the Family Court Act, which is a parallel and in many ways very similar. Family Court Act is if you're in family court, if you're dealing with like relationships between parties and custody issues, but you're not married, domestic relations law deals more. So when you're married, again, a lot of the, a lot of the issues overlap. Even if you're not married and you share a child, you're going to have to deal with custody and child support, right? So a lot of the issues overlap.

[14:08]But the two main bodies of law, the two main statues that we look at are the domestic relations law and the Family Court Act. And these both bodies of law, just like every other law, change over time. So they do change. So there's the statutory law, which is the actual black letter law. And then the other piece of this is there's case law that develops as a result of the statutory law. So the statutory law in and of itself is pretty robust already and it covers a lot of different topics. But then on top of that, you layer the case law or the decisions that come out when people litigate their cases and how does this apply. So it is a pretty robust area of law that is very one dynamic in the sense that it changes based on social needs, based on the actual change of the law. The other piece of it is that again, judges change their opinions, People's families are structured change, right? Like when I first started maybe almost 2 decades ago, same sex marriage was obviously something that existed but was still not as prevalent. Now there's a lot of same sex couples. And now also a new emerging trend that I am seeing is alternative family arrangements. So either parties who are not actually in romantic relationships and they want to have children together, or they're, I don't know why, but there's ironically enough, in the last year or two, there's been a lot of people who are transitioning. So what does their family life look like when one partner wants to transition their gender and maybe the other person hasn't changed or doesn't have any change to their sexual orientation or habits. As all of the ways that people live their lives change, and as new and different family arrangements come up, there's always more new laws, whether it's a law on the books to actually address it or whether it's the case law that is adapting to how families are changing. So it's a pretty big area of law that is constantly evolving, that is constantly changing and that you just have to be aware of it on top of in terms of the updates to the actual law and then charges in how people live. So well, like, like if you don't

[16:08]have a prenup and you'd go get sent into this and have a divorce and the the law gets applied to you, how does the having a prenup differ from that default process? Sure. So I mean, I want to rewind a little bit. I think prenups, that's our really interesting topic that used to be, I think, very taboo where people thought, you know, you're just planning to fail. Why do we need a prenuptial agreement? Or people would view them as well. It's usually only when one person has a lot more assets and you're trying to protect one person. But now more and more, I think it's become an egalitarian thing where if you really strip it down, what a prenuptial agreement is, it's a contract between two adults who want to decide certain things. So the difference is the topics in the contracts are very personal, right? But the reason that people have these is because if you don't have one, it doesn't mean that there's a free for all from what happens. It means that if you get a divorce, what happens in your divorce is governed by whatever the laws are at that time, which may change. And also, God forbid you can't agree and you have to get in front of a judge. You're now subjected to what a third person who doesn't know you and your marriage is nearly as well as you do, and whatever their mood happens to be on that day is going to be making decisions for you and your family. So in the absence of a prenuptial agreement, what happens is you leave a lot of control up to other people about what happens in their lives. So why do people like the prenuptial agreement? 2 reasons. One, they don't want to be subjected to changing laws or the whims of the judge. And two, you know, people weaponize the litigation process. I talk to people about this all the time. At the beginning of your relationship, when you're getting married, you're very happy. Hopefully you're getting along. So it's a lot easier to agree about things. God forbid you ever get a divorce, you're probably not getting along so well. And even if ultimately you or your partner knows that you're not going to be entitled to certain things under the law, you are also entitled to seek

[18:08]those things in a court. So again, I have people who know that ultimately they're not going to get a certain belief, but in order to apply pressure on the other side, they will litigate over the issue. And that's I think another thing that people want to reduce, is weaponizing litigation in the court system in a divorce. So a prenup makes it harder to litigate as a result. So then remove that weaponization. It doesn't make it harder, but what happens is at a time when you're calm, when you like each other, when you've had the chance to really think about how you want to handle things, you've been able to agree about as many things that you want to in advance as possible, which means that God forbid, at the time of the divorce, you're not fighting over those issues already. They've been agreed upon in advance. And that's so it's not a prevention of people being able to go to the court if they want to. It's hopefully actually a curative, you know, like proactive measure that you're take like for example, in New York, how do you divide your assets? It's not automatically a 5050 state. So one thing that people fight about a lot is should it be 505060407030? How should we divide our assets? So in advance you can say, well, I'd like it to be 5050 automatically, or you can say I would like it to be in proportion to our economic contributions or whatever else you want to agree upon. So you're not taking rights away from each other or the ability to fight about things. You're just agreeing about whatever you would like to agree about in advance so that you don't have to fight about it. Later like is it like a good? Like what makes the prenup a good prenup compared to like an AS prenup? It goes into the right level of detail on each part. Like a what? So the answer to that question is it's very different for every family, but there's a few common things that I like to say make a good prenup. The first one is that there are two types of lawyers who do prenup show agreements 1. There are more transactional or

[20:09]trust in estates lawyers, and a lot of trust in estates lawyers will do prenuptial agreements because as part of somebody's estate planning, it's a natural extension to say when you get married, this is how your estate rights will or not be affected. The other set of people who do prenups for agreements are matrimonial family law lawyers who litigate divorce. And some people are very hesitant to pick a litigator because they're worried that the litigator is going to come in and make a very aggressive environment while you're trying to negotiate a prenup. I actually think it's much better to have a litigator because as a litigator, we are in court all day, every day fighting over what happens when you get divorced. So we actually know and understand the issues that are going to be coming up and we know how to address those in an agreement appropriately. So someone who. So a good agreement is one that anticipates for all the issues that might actually come up in litigation. Secondly is that it is well drafted in the sense that, you know, the language is very clear and ambiguous, right? Because the problem becomes if you have an agreement where you think you know what you're agreeing to, but God forbid you get divorced, the court picks it up and they're trying to read the language and it's not so clear that's a problem. There's now uncertainty and you've spent a lot of time and money on a prenuptial agreement that now you're going to litigate over. So something that is very clearly drafted, something that, you know, again, someone who has expertise and who has done these before and can anticipate for the types of issues that are coming up is important. And 3rd is I just think again, to your point, starting as early as possible so that people are not stressed and they are not under a time crunch to get this done. So they really have time to ask questions of their lawyer, to talk with their partner about how they feel about these terms. Those are all really important things. The couple like they bring 2 lawyers? Like one for each person? Or do they usually have just one lawyer for both? So this is a question that I get very frequently, which is can the same lawyer represent both of us or do we each need our own

[22:11]lawyer? And I think people are often surprised to learn that you cannot have the same lawyer representing both of you in a prenuptial agreement. The reason is because you are obviously aligned. You are getting married and you're about to join your your lives together. So it's not meant to be an adversarial process. However, when you're getting married, each person has their own rights that they're entitled to and they might not always align. So the reason that you need 2 separate lawyers is that you need to be able to be advised of all the laws and your rights, and those rights and preferences might be different for each person coming into the marriage. So again, it's not meant to be adversarial. Getting married is an exciting time where you're joining your family together, but you do still need two different lawyers because your rights and interests might not always align perfectly. That makes sense. So you would talk individually, separately with the respective lawyers and everybody would get together and they would negotiate the overall. Correct, correct. That's exactly it. That makes sense. And then, like, over time, I guess, like if they get a new job, if they buy a new house, if they buy another couple of houses, like did you have to like, continuously update this document over time? So, you know, when I was a younger lawyer and I did a prenuptial agreement, I would tell people, I hope this is the first and last time you ever see this document and you never think about it again. But the reality is as I, as my practice has grown and as I've seen more in different types of cases, the reality is a prenuptial agreement can be a living, breathing document in the sense that exactly to your point, if there's been a change of circumstance in some situation, you may want to revise what you had done, whether it's because you've hit a milestone, right? Let's say now we've been married for 10 years, we want to change the term whether you've acquired certain assets, whether you want to change your estate plan. So you can always do that in something called a post nuptial agreement. So the postduptial agreement is kind of like the younger sibling of the prenuptial. I think everybody has heard about a prenuptial agreement. Not as many people know about a

[24:11]postduptial agreement. So postduptial agreement can accomplish pretty much everything that a prenuptial agreement does. The difference is that it gets signed after the marriage instead of before. And a postduptial agreement most commonly comes up in 2 cases. One where there's been a change of life circumstance, so they need, you know, whether you bought more property, whether you're changing your estate plan, you need your marital agreement to match whatever is going on with your life. Especially with the state plan and especially with a lot of clients that I deal with, they have very sophisticated estate plans because they have complicated assets or a large amount of assets or a lot of them are founders or business owners and they're, you know, they're changing the way that they're doing things for tax advantageous reasons. The other reason that I see people doing post nuptial agreements, which this is also very common, they never had a prenup to begin with. And you know, they are now at a point where their marriage is in crisis. They don't know if the marriage is going to work out or not. And obviously one of the natural consequences of that is they don't know how their financial circumstances will look. So sometimes people want to do a post nuptial agreement because what they want to do is while they're still trying to salvage the marriage, they will reach an agreement about God forbid if we get divorced, this is what happens. So they know the finances are going to look like this if we get divorced. And what they'll do is they'll sign the agreement and then they'll put it away. Now they don't have to worry about the finances because they know what's going to happen. And instead they can focus solely on the marriage and the marriage relationship without worrying. Like, can I afford to get divorced? Am I going to be out on the street and starving without money for my kids if I get divorced? So I also, you know what I said in the beginning, I do divorce as a living. That's a very big part of what I do. But I really genuinely believe people should try to, to salvage their marriages if they can. And a post nuptial agreement is one of the tools that you could use to try to do that. So. There's a legal, it's like really, it's like really messy and you're trying to add some structure to it. Like is there a lot of creativity in the work? Like like if they like to go to the two lawyers, like one lawyer for them and the other lawyer

[26:12]for that person, they get together, are there like 2 completely different paths that they can take? And like how creative is there? How much creativity is there? I mean, so the nice thing about reaching A voluntary agreement between you and your partners, you can be as creative as you want. You can agree to whatever you want to agree to. Unfortunately, if you can't reach an agreement, then like I said, you're subject to whatever the laws say and what a judge says. So, and this also comes in when we were talking about, you know, there's different types of every family and situation is unique. I often find that the cases that have a unique personal aspect, whether it's the assets are complicated, whether the personal interpersonal relationship issues are very complicated. You want to look for a sophisticated lawyer with a lot of experience in order to be creative in these situations. And that's exactly what you need it for. Like I said, if you have someone with a substance abuse issue, you may need to be creative and you have children, you may need to be creative about what are the safety protocols you put in place so that the person who's undergoing, you know, the treatment at the time can then reestablish a relationship with their children safely. Or let's say, for example, you've got really complicated assets that are layered in trusts in different entities in different countries. Maybe there's a lot of different indirect ownership. Again, a court may or may not understand all of those issues and may or may not be able to structure a deal. Right. One of a very classic example is I work with a lot of founders on paper, they have a lot of network, but they may not have a lot of liquidity. So how do you deal with the issue of and startups or companies or businesses are never really certain, right? It's So again, how is a court going to figure out you may be worth several millions or hundreds of mill or even billions of dollars on paper, but what does what is that actually worth when you can't immediately access that liquidity and you don't know if that's really going to come to fruition. So in these types of complicated situations, the creativity is

[28:13]exactly what you need in order to solve for these problems. A lot of new things that are happening too, For example, frozen genetic material. A lot of people are waiting longer and longer to have children, so they have created embryos or sperm or eggs. There's a lot of families that are same sex couples who obviously need assistance on the biological level, tap children. So the issue of how do you dispose of and deal with embryos or sperm or eggs is also a relatively new and interesting topic, especially in the current political landscape where the definitions of what is an embryo, when does life begin are really changing. So do you treat this as chattel or property? Do you treat it as a child where there's custody concerns? These like these topics where how we live our life and technology often advance much faster than the law. This is where you can get really creative about, well, how do you want to deal with these things? The law hasn't caught up yet. We don't have a lot of cases on this. It hasn't been dealt with yet. So this is where you can work with a sophisticated lawyer with a lot of experience to come up with those creative solutions of how you want to address those topics. That makes sense. So there's a lot of new things, a lot of complications as well. And then like you said earlier, like some people might not need a prenup like just because it's like a very simple situation that they have, like, is that usually the reason? Yeah, I mean, so for anyone who wants a prenup can get one if they want to. You don't have to have tons of assets. And actually, you know, I was just saying before, I've seen a lot of democratization of the prenuptial agreement, if you will say, because let's say when I was first starting my career, it was families who had significant assets that they were trying to protect. That was the most common type of client that we saw. But nowadays, you know, you can get AI wouldn't necessarily recommend this for everybody for a lot of different reasons, but you can go to LegalZoom and get a pre a relatively simple, straightforward prenuptial agreement for a couple $100, right? So again, the point of a prenup when you don't really have assets is you don't want to

[30:13]fight about things which I talked to you about before, which was even if you know that you're not entitled to something, you can fight it out. So for example, I had a case where the parties were married less than a year. The divorce lasted like multiple years because the issues were so complicated or there was even that much to fight about. There weren't even children there. But one of the spouses was really hurt and upset and that spouse did not want to let go. So they litigated over every. They lost ultimately on every issue. But in order to get through the court and litigation process, it can take years. So again, it's not necessarily how simple or complicated the issues are or how much or how little of assets you have. It's in your circumstance and based on your personality and your partner's personality, how much likelihood is there to be conflict? Which again, some people in advance know this is how I am and I'm it's going to be a tough fight. Some people don't know. And again, a lot of times when people come to me for divorce, a mental health crisis or substance abuse issue has has come up. So that's then one of the partners or maybe both has changed. So you can't always anticipate for what's going to happen. No, But I mean, so with the prenuptial agreement, again, the whole point of doing a prenuptial agreement is you're agreeing to certain things in advance. So once you've agreed to those topics, you don't have to fight about them. The arbitration issue is also actually a very interesting one because as we talked about body of law changes at all times, it's currently unclear whether arbitration is really enforceable in divorce. So for example, in a regular commercial litigation case, if you have a fee dispute with a business or a service provider, there's usually a clause in there that you have to go to arbitration. You don't have access, right? If you want to use their services or you want to engage or purchase certain things, you have to sign agreements. And when it's not a family law related matter, by and large, it's generally enforceable to say I waive my right to go to court and I have to go to a

[32:14]mandatory arbitration instead. The trick with family law is that one of the the way that the court system is set up is there's multiple layers. So there's a trial level that is the first level that you deal with. If that court issues a decision and you don't agree whether it's on the facts of the law, you have remedies, which is you can appeal that decision to go the Arbor creation. It's usually binding and there's no overview of the process or the outcome. So even though it can be similar in a lot of ways where you're going through the same steps, you have a neutral third party who's going to make a decision for you after hearing the evidence. There is no system of overview if that person gets it wrong. So the, the part of it that is most relevant is custody, right? Because if you're fighting over money, yes, you can cause real harm if you didn't get nearly enough or you can't live. But when it comes to custody in children, that is much more sensitive in the sense that, you know, God forbid the arbitrator gets the custody determination wrong. Where do you have relief? Where else can you go if they really got it wrong? So it's currently unclear and not like there's there's actually one case that is actively ongoing right now, which obviously I can't speak about. It's not my case, it's a colleague. But it's a very interesting one that most of us family lawyers are watching in New York at least, because it deals with parties who voluntarily agreed to arbitrate all of the issues of their divorce, including the custody. They are now almost all the way through with that case. And one of the sides said, wait a minute, I don't think that I can. You can't force me to arbitrate custody issues. So it's currently an unknown question what's going to happen. And ultimately I think there will probably be an appeal in that case and then a decision will finally come down to clarify. Is it enforceable to force someone to go to arbitration or not over family bond? Gotcha, that's really interesting. Yes. Again, you know, there's not that I would ever want to make anyone feel like their divorce wasn't painful or difficult, but there are cases where there are more straightforward facts, and there are cases where there are

[34:16]much more nuanced and complicated. Facts. Yeah. And you see, it's only like marriages come together and marriages, like, go apart. Like so, prenup does help like marriages stay together as well. I think it does because what happens a lot of times is you have, I like the concept of the prenup because you're forced to discuss a lot of financial topics that are awkward or difficult. And a lot of times people get married without think. Like sometimes people get married without even living together or having shared their finances yet. And it's only after they get married they're like, oh, wait a minute. We are not aligned on certain things. So I think by virtue of the fact that you are forced to talk about some difficult topics ahead of time and if you can make it through that process, still wanting to be together, that has already called the herd in terms of, you know, a lot of people come to me for prenups. Most of them do end up getting married, but some of them don't. And it's because of what they've learned or seen in the prenup full agreement process. So part of fewer divorces with the prenup is you've talked about these topics and you've realized that you are compatible, so you get married or you talk about these topics and now you realize you're not compatible so you call off the wedding. The other part of it as well is I think that people who enter into a prenup, oftentimes they've spent actual time deliberating and money hiring a lawyer, deliberating over these issues. So oftentimes people who do the prenups, I think have lower rates of divorce because they've thought about a lot of these topics in advance before they get married, which would be surprised. There's a lot of people who've been together for many years. And even after that, there's things that they don't know about each other and then they get married and then they talk about the issue or it comes up later. So again, I think it's a great tool because it just forces these difficult conversations ahead of time. And it's it's you know, you're not going to engage in a prenuptial process unless you're deliberate and have given thought to these issues, which again, usually leads to more success rate of marriage. Gotcha. And then like the the overall cultural acceptance of prenups,

[36:16]that is not like a negative thing, but as a positive thing that's growing as well. Yes. And you know, it's very interesting. Very. It's different in different jurisdictions. I think in the US, prenups have lost the taboo characterization quite a while ago, and they're very prevalent. I have colleagues in my firm who are in the Asia office. Prenups are viewed as very bad luck over there. They're just, you know, like people are still a little bit more superstitious about it. And, you know, divorce was not as prevalent in different countries. Divorce has become more prevalent. And although cultural norms still exist, people are becoming a little bit more accepting A prenuptial agreement. So the other really interesting piece about it too is the prenup as a concept and illegal instrument has been in the US established for quite a long time, especially in a state like New York, NY has a very well established body of law and practices around prenuptial agreements in other countries in the world. They're still new, you know, they don't actually exist or they're not actually enforceable yet. So they are a starting point that a court will look at, but they're not enforceable. So, you know, an example of this is very recently I just did a the US and Saudi Arabia agreement. The body of divorce law in Saudi Arabia is new and developing in the sense that it's a primarily Muslim country where, you know, it's it's governed by Sharia law. So most of the marriages are religious, not secular. And so the body of law is religious, which as you can imagine, is very different than what the secular laws are. So that became, you know, that is the jurors. I think it might have been one of the first prenuptial agreements between the US and Saudi Arabia or in Saudi Arabia in general, because the concept of like rights and laws in a marriage are just becoming more developed. And so a prenuptial agreement is also a new concept that is is developing there. If you want to, you know, on the flip side, a country like the UK, obviously divorce has existed there for a long time and the body of law around that has existed for a long time, but

[38:16]it's very different from the US. And actually there, even though it's very robust and well established, prenups are actually not technically enforceable. So it's very, it's on both spectrums, not only in places where divorces and the divorce law has been well established, it's still uncertain, but in other countries where the divorce law is emerging, it's still uncertain. So it's very interesting to see these trends, how socially the way that families change is driving change in the law and also legally what is or is not recognized. It feels like the business world, you always have a contract. When 2 businesses work with each other, that's a well defined contract is very important. So it's surprising how in the personal space, it's so far behind. Well, yes and no. I think in most cases, most governments or the courts would say if you're an adult and you want to enter an agreement, you should be able to do it. When it comes to divorce, I think because it has to do with your home, your livelihood, your children, the courts and the law are more protective because, you know, they don't want to see a case where there's not enough protections in place for children or there's not enough protections in place for, let's say, a victim of domestic abuse that doesn't have access to money and they want to litigate, but they can't. So that's where divorce courts and laws, I think, are a lot more invasive and willing to impose more restrictions or obligations or minimum rights just because the issues that you're dealing with are really sensitive, custody of your children, ownership of your home or your business, your livelihood. So that's where family law is a little different than every other area of law. That makes sense. So, so like you, you went to Cornell and you went to law school. Like how did you choose a family law of all the different law area practices? So it was actually quite serendipitous. I never thought that I was going to be a family lawyer or divorce lawyer. I actually thought that I was going to be a corporate transactional lawyer. And the first job that I got while I was still in law school, when you go to law school, you do. Clerkships during your summer, as they call it, your summer was at a large firm and I was really more interested in corporate and

[40:17]transactional work. And when I started doing the work, it was intellectually interesting in the sense that the actual topic and subject matter was quite interesting, but it was emotionally very unfulfilling because what I found was that you're dealing with a whole other team of lawyers and if you win or lose something, you know, there's not there's not as much of a personal impact. Also in those types of cases, they can last for years. And so, you know, I, I did the actual work and I found that I would be intellectually stimulated, but it wasn't so emotionally fulfilling. Then I went and did my last year of law school and I happened to take a course that year on. It was called The Anatomy of a Divorce. It's taught by quite a prolific, famous divorce lawyer in New York who's still practicing. And the class was just very interesting to me. And I formed a very, I mean, I really liked this professor and he kind of took me under his wing a little bit and said, is this something you're actually interested in? Let me introduce you to some people. So the first job that I got out of law school was clerking for match amount judge. At that point, I still didn't know whether this is what I wanted to do, but I think any lawyer can attest that a clerkship is excellent experience. And so during that first year and a half, experiencing divorces from behind the bench, sitting with a judge, I found that it was intellectually stimulating in the sense that every case was a new set of facts. You know, you've got different types of assets to value. How do you deal with, like, all these creative solutions to split them up? But I also found it to be emotionally satisfying because if you win or lose something, it's more time that you get to spend with your kid. It's do you get to retain your home? How much of your business do you get to keep? So for me personally, it was the perfect balance between intellectual stimulation and an emotional fulfillment connection with the client. You know, it's a very immediate response. If I get more custody for my client, they're going to spend more time with their kid. If I can get the home for the client, be able to have security, like it's so much more immediate. And I've been very lucky that many of the cases that I work on, we're not fighting over the dog or the couch. We're fighting over very interesting, complicated assets.

[42:19]So I'm always constantly learning something new, you know, whether it's about an industry, whether it's about a client's personality, whether it's about dynamics between people. I'm always learning, which is great. And then you've switched firms over the years as well, like a little how, how has the career trajectory been like after you settled? You decided to do matrimonial a lot, so. It's again, it's my journey has been really serendipitous in the sense that, you know, I started clerking for a judge first, which was a great experience and then I went to a right after for that. I went to a small boutique firm which was really great because I got a lot of very hands on training. And as a really young lawyer, I was being sent into court pretty quickly. I was having client contact right away, so the training was not as formal, but it was much more hands on. And I think as a young lawyer I got really experienced really quickly. After that, I moved to a larger firm for about a decade where the training was more formal. And it was a perfect combination because I had gotten a lot of this hands on, going to court, having the clients, you know, making discretionary decisions in the cases. And now I was coming to a much bigger firm with 20 different partners who had 20 different styles and the cases were very big and sophisticated. Normal training. And also just seeing how different people with different personalities run their cases and manage their clients was so wonderful. And then I landed at my current position because I, you know, really appreciated the experience that I got at my prior firm, but I was ready to be a little bit more entrepreneurial to manage my own caseload. And also just in addition to being a lawyer and wanting to do that, I wanted to build something. So my current firm, Withers, is a very well established firm. We are hitting our 130th anniversary this year, but, and the firm also is very well established in terms of family law. We have West Coast practices, Europe practices, Asia practices, but the firm did not have a New York practice. So it was the perfect platform for me to step into a firm that was well established, had the resources, was well known, with

[44:20]a good reputation, but didn't have a New York presence in the family law area yet. So it was all the resources and support that I needed and all the freedom that I wanted in order to build this group the way that I wanted to. It's been really amazing and my colleagues are great. And you know, I was attracted to this specific opportunity because the firm really services individuals. So when a client comes to me and they're getting a divorce, if there are other issues that come up in the divorce, I have partners within the firm that can handle it. So the client really has one stop shopping, which is great. So for example, I have a client right now, unfortunately there's a little bit of a criminal matter that we're dealing with. And then there's also an employment matter and then an estate piece. I have partnership practice in all these areas. So I just reach out for the expertise and it's much more convenient for the clients. And I think I think better service as well because everybody's on the same page. I understand and know my colleagues very well, the caliber of their work. I can match the right personality to the client and their keys. So it's been really wonderful and. For the closing question, I always ask the guest, what's the kindest thing anyone's ever done for you? Sure. I mean, I think a. Recurrent theme here is mentorship. So when I was younger and I didn't know what I wanted to do, there were quite a few different lawyers and non lawyers who were willing and generous enough, even though they were extremely busy and successful in their own right, to take me under their wing and mentor me and give me advice, personal advice, professional advice, things like that that have really helped shape my journey and gotten me to where I am today. And some of them are, you know, again, the professor who taught me that law class, he's still practicing and I have the joy of being across cases from his firm now, which is pretty amazing. You know, there's another partner at the firm that I was formerly at who really took me under her wing. I, I consider her my work mother. So again, just the time and investment and generosity of spirit of people to invest in me

[46:20]when they didn't have to is I think probably 1 of the kinds of things that people have done. And it's something that I really believe in passing forward. So, you know, just to your point, Cornelians have an amazing network and people reach out to me all the time. Oh, I'm interested in family law or I'm interested in practicing in New York or things like that. Whatever I can do to like, even if I'm busy, I will try to take the time to have a coffee, do a meeting, talk to them about my practice because I wouldn't be here today if people hadn't done that for me. So thanks so much for sharing, Nikki. Of course it was so.