Family Law

Silicon Valley Divorce Lawyer

“Sometimes a good outcome is very clear – getting a restraining order against an abusive spouse, or getting spousal support against a spouse who’s hiding income. Other times, a good outcome is far more nuanced. Without fail, all of our best outcomes, our big wins, come about because only one side did the work. And a big, big part of that is deeply understanding the people involved and what makes them tick.”

Amy Laughlin

HIGH NET WORTH AND ULTRA HIGH NET WORTH DIVORCE IN SILICON VALLEY:
What a Silicon Valley divorce lawyer can do for you and how to choose one.

For many reasons, Silicon Valley is swarming with lawyers of all sorts – IP, M&A, VC, AI, just to name a few. And lawyers are like any other group of professionals: roughly 10-15% are exceptional, about the same number are not great or dangerously bad, and the remaining 70-80% are somewhere in the competent massive middle. They’re average. And while that vast majority probably won’t directly hurt you, whenever the relative net worth of the population is uncommonly high as in Silicon Valley, the legal stakes are also uncommonly high.

So how should someone choose a Silicon Valley divorce lawyer? And what should they expect from them?

Here are excerpts from a conversation with Ms. Laughlin on the topic of choosing a Silicon Valley divorce lawyer and what to expect from them including answers to some of the questions she’s most frequently asked.

Q So why become a Silicon Valley divorce lawyer? What makes Silicon Valley a unique place to practice law?

AMY LAUGHLIN In a word, innovation. Silicon Valley is home to a dynamic and inspiring population. And the stimulation and the challenges that are a part of practicing family law here are irresistible – at least for me. Entrepreneurs and risk takers have been flocking here for nearly 200 years from all over the world.

For context, there were the prospectors in the Gold Rush, and visionaries like Leland Stanford who introduced a more progressive model to academia. And Federick Terman, the dean of engineering at Stanford and his students, William Hewlett and David Packard, who he challenged to start tech companies and put their ideas into action. And Shockley Semiconductor that utilized the silicon technology that gave the Santa Clara Valley a new name. And then of course there’s the endless stream of innovators who followed and launched companies like Intel, Apple, Oracle, Google, Meta, etc.

So you’re wondering what this has to do with divorce. If you’re the sort of entrepreneurial, risk-taking individual who made your home in Silicon Valley, and I’m one of them, the odds are good you’re not entirely different from your neighbors who are among the best and the brightest in tech, venture capital, research and academia. You’re a driven, successful individual who quite possibly is building a highly complex portfolio with equally complex tax consequences, and containing things like pre-IPO shares, carry, crypto, RSUs, RSAs, founder’s stock, and ISOs, in addition to the more traditional sorts of assets. And it’s the valuing and dividing of those various forms of complex equity compensation that requires a specialized kind of knowledge and expertise that’s more often found in a Silicon Valley divorce attorney than a divorce attorney in most places.

Q Can a person be trained to be a Silicon Valley divorce attorney for tech professionals? Is that a legal fellowship of some sort?

AMY LAUGHLIN There’s no specific legal fellowship. But anyone can learn anything with effort. The question is, do you want someone training on your case? This reminds me of Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hour rule – it takes about 10,000 hours to develop expertise in a complex skill. There are no shortcuts. And it’s not just about 10,000 hours of repeated behaviors. No, it’s about bringing a far more analytical and intentional approach to your practice. Think about it: you absolutely do not want your attorney to be in training on your case.

I was lucky because as a young lawyer, I was hired by a large firm, and trained by the best to be a securities litigator. That’s what large law firms do, train and invest in their associates. We’re not a large firm, but we also train our attorneys, in this case to be high net worth and ultra high net worth attorneys. And they’re trained by me and my law firm Partners.

Q My spouse and I didn’t get a prenup. Can a Silicon Valley high asset divorce lawyer help me protect my new startup with a postnuptial agreement? Does it have any teeth?

AMY LAUGHLIN A postnup will never be as tight as a prenup. With a prenup, you’re both on an equal playing field. You’re not married, you can still get out if you want, so you’re negotiating on equal footing. After a marriage, things can change fairly quickly to create an unequal footing. Like when one spouse quits working to be a parent and is reliant on the other spouse for money. And they also have a very high fiduciary duty to each other after marriage. In other words, they’re obligated to act in the best interest of their partner. So unlike prenuptial agreements, which start with a presumption of validity, courts scrutinize postnuptial agreements heavily.

So you want to make sure that you have a lawyer who understands how to draft postnups. Here again, it comes down to experience. One thing we do for postnups at our firm is we bring in a court reporter, and I have the parties sit down, and we do a voir dire which means we ask questions intended to make sure that the document is not signed under duress of any sort. We ask, did you read it? Did you understand it? Did you feel pressured to sign it? Do you feel it’s fair and reasonable? Did you sign it voluntarily? Did you disclose all your assets? Etc. And we get all this on the record so that they can’t come back and challenge it. In fact, we’ve never had a prenup or a postnup challenged in any way.

Q “What if you and your partner sign a prenup but you didn’t anticipate the possibility of a massive liquidity event like an IPO. Will that event affect the validity of the prenup? Should I expect the average Silicon Valley divorce attorney to have handled that kind of thing?”

AMY LAUGHLIN No, the event doesn’t invalidate anything. Whether it’s an asset that existed at the time of marriage or one that was retained after marriage, it should still be addressed in the prenup. There are prenups and then there are prenups, however. This, too, is an area of expertise that you only arrive at after many years and many many prenups.

All kinds of things can happen with Silicon Valley wealth. And some of the assets we’re talking about didn’t even exist 10 years ago. A strong prenuptial agreement must be broad enough that any type of asset that might come into play in the future will be covered, yet specific enough that it gives the court adequate instructions as to how to divide the asset in the unfortunate case of divorce.

Q How should someone prepare for a consultation with a high net worth divorce in Silicon Valley to get the most out of it so I can make a good decision? What should someone ask a Silicon Valley divorce lawyer before hiring them?

AMY LAUGHLIN Prepare a list of questions that you bring with you so you don’t leave anything out. Here are a handful I would strongly consider.

What is your main practice area?
Do you consider yourself a high net worth divorce attorney? What about ultra high net worth? What does that mean to you?
I want my case to settle amicably. But if it doesn’t, how many trials did you do last year? What were the outcomes?
What unique issues do you see in my case? What are the gray areas?
How would you characterize your style of practice? Aggressive? Strategic? Patient?
Do you have time for my case?
Who will be handling my case? And for what % of the time?
On average, how long will it take for you to get back to me on a given day? This is an important question that I’ve never been asked but I always find a way to work in the fact that my clients have access to me 24/7. They all have my cell number–and I will immediately respond to their texts and calls.

Then get more specific about things that pertain to you, you want to understand their level of experience in your type of case. If you’re a venture capitalist, ask them which VC firms they’ve had experience with. If you’ve got pre-IPO stock to sell in the secondary market, you want to ask them which platforms they’ve worked with. Ask how many cases they’ve done. A few more…

Have you ever had a case like this? Tell me a few short stories about great outcomes you’ve had for cases like mine.
How has carried interest been divided in some of your cases, what methods have been used? That should tell you whether they have the necessary knowledge.
What is your strategy when you go into a case? Most attorneys don’t have one. Or how about: How do you decide next steps?
From what I’ve shared, what do you think the best approach would be?

Searching for the best divorce lawyer in Silicon Valley? Let’s talk.

Laughlin Legal Divorce & Family Law Group is a collection of some of the most skilled high asset and ultra high asset Silicon Valley family law attorneys. Laughlin Legal is trusted throughout California for their ability to understand and secure their clients’ needs and values, and help divorcing parties achieve a better outcome for a better tomorrow.

Call us at 650.343.3486 to schedule your first consultation. If you’d prefer, you can email us to set up your appointment. If we miss your call, we will respond promptly and call you back as soon as possible.

Laughlin Legal Family Law Group
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