Divorce Trends

Divorce law reflects the way people work, live, and plan for their families and futures.

As in any profession, there exists an industry trend that permeates the divorce industry and the professionals delivering divorce services from judges to forensics, attorneys to CDFA® professionals to divorce coaches and appellate cases in the United States.

Some of the trends that have surfaced over the last few years are discussed below.

Privacy

While high profile divorces often captured news headlines, the splashy courtroom battles are being replaced with private settlements.  Celebrities and non-celebrities alike, desire more privacy and carefully executed agreements. Settlement negotiations are often held outside of  the courtroom to ensure privacy.

Prenups

Prenuptial Agreements are replacing “starter marriages” as couples consider the intricacies of two-career households, future earnings, blended families. They are taking a more holistic approach to marriage and acting with decisiveness about getting married by postponing the age at which they marry.  They may have longer engagement periods, cohabit or cohabit longer than usual, and as a result enter the marriage with more intention, assets, and career planning in place. 

While “starter marriages” was a term that referred to marriages in which couples marry at a young age and end the marriage relative quickly within the first five years.

Couples are tending towards committing with intention and legal foresight, resorting to prenuptial agreements to ensure that they are protecting their assets and have a plan known by both parties in advance if things do not work out.

Use of Artificial Intelligence

While friends and family were the key sources of advice, artificial intelligence is becoming more popular as a source of knowledge.  AI enables the lay person considering divorce to explore the landscape before ever talking with the professionals.

Rather than crowdsourcing advice that could be very specific to individual cases, AI tools help parties get organized, understand terminology and prepare logicial and sound questions before meeting with an attorney.  Whereas group chats, social media and well-meaning friends and family may offer support, their advice may not reflect current case law nor be applicable to the particular case. 

AI is not a substitute for the family law attorneys nor the financial professionals who support the asset and debt division.  But it does help with informing parties and sheds some reasonableness to those who are unaware of the existing law or approach to dissolution in their state. The caveat is that AI does not always adequately represent the local law, customary approaches or judicial discretion. Often parties who are very reliant upon AI become fixated in a particular course of action and assume it is a guarantee, when in fact, it may not be the customary approach.

Hiding Cash is Becoming More Difficult

Attempts to conceal assets has become more difficult with a trend toward more digital financial behavior tracking money movement. While there are now fewer stacks of hidden cash in the home, bad actors are resorting to more creative and traceable methods such as purchasing gift cards, opening digital wallets and prepaying credit cards for a credit balance.

Courts and financial professionals are well aware of these trends, and with the disclosures required in all of the states, it makes it difficult to keep these hidden.  Transparency between couples is the smarter long-term play.

Digital Assets, Gold and Silver, Alternatives

Alternative assets are becoming more mainstream as cryptocurrencies, precious metals and other tangible stores of value are showing up more frequently as part of the asset portfolio.

While they raise new valuation and division challenges, including timing of the division due to volatile market fluctuations, they are more popular than ever and need to be addressed as part of the marital estate.

Private equity investments, many requiring commitments to further funding and many venture funds which prohibit withdrawals or sales before a longer term of 5-10 years are also showing up in marital portfolios.  These require additional challenges of deferring future division exceeding the date of the divorce decree. 

Traditional mutual funds have been on a decline since the popularity of ETFs has risen in the 21st Century and are less represented in the marital portfolio.

Parallel Parenting

Courts and practioners are increasingly recognizing that forced cooperation between hostile or volatile parents can fuel conflict rather than reduce it. Parallel parenting is a structured parenting model that is surfacing in some states and is designed for high-conflict situations.

The goal of parallel parenting is not collaboration but instead, peace and predictability.  This requires digital communication tools such as My Family Wizard to minimize direct communication or non-metered communication between parents. 

The parenting plans typically involve very detailed schedules and descriptions of how day-to-day activities, holidays, and events transpire. 

Lastly, there are clearly defined decision-making authorities for various situations and concerns.

This avoids the need for parents to constantly invoke the use of a third party “co-parenting coach” to mediate post-divorce custody issues.

Spousal Support

The cookie-cutter support formulas also known as guideline formulas in some states for long-term support are phasing out. Replacing these standard approaches where applicable by law, are buy-outs, buy-downs and step-downs.

Many states require the court to review multiple factors before ordering a support calculation. While this seems to be a “custom” approach, structuring creative approaches outside of the court  is often more desirable for both the payor and payee and can take into account each party’s interests and needs. 

As divorce law continues to evolve, the most successful outcomes will come from planning ahead, embracing modern tools wisely, and strategically approaching the division of assets, parenting and ultimate settlement agreement.

This article does NOT constitute legal, financial, or tax advice and is for general information purposes ONLY. Prior to making any decisions, seek legal counsel from a licensed attorney.