New Jersey Family Law, Divorce and Prenuptial Agreements

If you’re preparing for marriage, you may be asking how to handle the home you already own. When you’re considering divorce, one of your first questions may be whether you can afford to keep your home. At The Rivkind Law Firm, we begin with the question that brought you in. We take the time to understand your family, your finances, and what you want to accomplish before we advise you about an agreement or a course of action.

Shari A. Rivkind has represented clients in divorce and matrimonial matters for nearly 40 years. Morgan J. Weil works with individuals preparing for marriage and families planning for their future. The firm represents clients throughout New Jersey.

Divorce and matrimonial representation

You can meet with us while you’re deciding whether to separate, when you and your spouse have begun discussing terms, or after you’ve received divorce papers. We’ll talk through the questions that matter to you. How will you cover household expenses if one of you moves out? What parenting arrangement would work with your children’s school and your work schedules? If you keep the house, what would that mean for the rest of the settlement?

For a business owner, those questions may extend to payroll, income that varies from year to year, or ownership shared with a partner. Shari’s background in business law and matrimonial matters helps us examine how a proposed settlement would work for the family and the business. We advise you through negotiations and represent you in court when needed.

Prenuptial agreements and independent prenup review

A prenup conversation often starts with something quite specific. Your parents are helping with a down payment. You built a business before you met your partner. One of you expects to step away from work when you have children. We talk through what those decisions could mean for you and how you want the agreement to address them.

In every prenup matter, we represent one individual. If you’re asking us to draft the agreement, we begin with your priorities and explain the choices behind the language we propose. If your partner’s attorney has already sent a draft, we provide an independent review. You can sit down with your own lawyer, ask questions privately, and understand what you’re being asked to sign. If a provision needs to change, we can negotiate it on your behalf.

Postnuptial agreements

Financial arrangements sometimes change after the wedding. Perhaps one spouse is buying into a business, or you’re putting an inheritance toward a home you own together. We help married clients talk through what they want to document, consider whether a postnuptial agreement suits their circumstances, and understand how its terms would work in practice.

The story behind Bridelawyer™ and Groomlawyer

We’re Shari and Morgan, mother and daughter, and both lawyers. When Morgan planned her own wedding, we got to experience the paperwork from the bride’s side of the table. You can spend an afternoon choosing a venue because you love the room, the food, and the way you’re treated. Then someone hands you a contract and asks for a deposit. Even when there are two lawyers in the family, it’s easy to see which part of that afternoon you’d rather spend talking about.

That experience captures why we founded Bridelawyer™ and Groomlawyer as practice divisions of The Rivkind Law Firm. We wanted brides and grooms to have somewhere to turn with questions they might hesitate to ask a vendor, a parent, or each other. Does the minimum guest count mean you’ll pay for people who never come? If your parents say the down payment is a gift “for the two of you,” does everyone understand what they mean? And how do you bring up a prenup with someone you love when you’re worried the very question will hurt their feelings?

Education is a big part of what we do. In our blog and weekly newsletter, we take one of those questions and give it the room it deserves. On our podcast, you’ll hear us talk it through together, sometimes from different generations and sometimes from opposite sides of the same wedding-planning decision. Our social media reels and YouTube videos give brides and grooms something they can actually use, whether it’s a question to ask on the next venue tour or a way to start a conversation on the ride home.

Wedding contracts, vendor disputes, and planning after the wedding

Through Bridelawyer and Groomlawyer, we also advise clients on their own agreements. If a venue coordinator shows you a beautiful indoor ceremony space for a rainy day, we can check whether your contract actually reserves that room. If the date changes, a vendor cancels, or there’s a disagreement over a deposit, we review the agreement and correspondence and help you decide how to proceed.

We work with wedding professionals, too. A florist may have to pay for flowers weeks before the wedding. A planner may be asked to take on a rehearsal dinner halfway through the engagement. We draft contracts that address when the work begins, what the fee covers, and how later changes will be approved and paid for.

After the wedding, Morgan helps individuals and families prepare or revisit wills, trusts, powers of attorney, health care documents, and beneficiary designations as their lives change.

Visit Bridelawyer.com · Visit Groomlawyer.com

Schedule a consultation

Call (201) 330-0061 to schedule a consultation. If you have an agreement waiting for signature, an upcoming wedding date, or court papers with a response deadline, mention it when you call. We meet with clients throughout New Jersey by Zoom, by telephone, and in person. Our attorneys are licensed in New Jersey and New York.