Once upon a time, a prenup was about the beach house, the pension, and maybe the family business. It was practical, a little unromantic, and mostly reserved for the wealthy or the well-advised. But the world has changed. Your client no longer owns a brick-and-mortar business—they have an Etsy store that nets six figures a year and is managed by a VA in the Philippines, a YouTube channel with ad revenue, and a crypto wallet. And they’re in love.
Welcome to the era of the modern prenup—where protecting “property” means understanding IP rights, revenue-sharing contracts, and how to value TikTok followers.
As family law attorneys, we’re entering uncharted waters. The questions we need to ask our clients have changed. And the templates for prenuptial drafting that many of us have relied on for years? They need a reboot.
Digital Love, Digital Assets
Digital entrepreneurship is no longer a niche. Increasingly, clients come to us with income streams that exist entirely online—affiliate deals, e-courses, social media brand partnerships, digital art portfolios, and investments in cryptocurrency. Many of these income streams are volatile, difficult to value, and legally complex. Worse, they’re often interwoven with personal identity. When your client’s identity is their brand, separating business from marriage becomes messy, fast.
We recently handled a divorce where the spouse had built a successful YouTube-based brand during the marriage. The channel brought in sponsorship deals, merchandise revenue, and had over 300,000 followers. There was no prenup. Had they not settled, it would have been a months-long battle necessitating digital forensic and likely other intellectual property experts, just to value the channel and apportion advertising and other income that it brought in. Worse, both parties believed they were entitled to control the brand’s future—one because they had managed the production and brand partnerships, the other because they had appeared in nearly every video and had become the recognizable “face” of the brand. It was a preventable mess.
Another one of our recent consultations involved a tech founder whose app—now valued at over $200 million—was developed entirely during the marriage. At the time of the wedding, it was just an idea and a beta version he was unsure would ever gain traction. But the app took off. Now, we’re dealing with complex valuation issues: how much of the current value is tied to brand potential, can it be expanded internationally, and how will any spin-off income streams be treated? He told us, frankly, he wished he had handled the prenup differently. A lot of potential fees could likely have been avoided if he had been advised to distinguish between different aspects of the business (i.e. the early-stage idea vs. the scalable enterprise it became). Or similarly, if he had included clearer terms around growth, valuation benchmarks, and potential equity splits.
In another matter, we represented a wife and online personality who had developed a multimillion business before the marriage. However, after she got married, she gave 50% of the company to her husband. When the marriage ended, the valuation of the business going forward became an issue. Without the wife, who was the face of the brand and the main source of income for the business, it was unclear just how much revenue the business would be able to bring in, if any. A well-drafted prenuptial agreement that took into account the specific nature of her business, and helped to untangle the different revenue streams, would have helped streamline their divorce.
This Isn’t Just for Influencers
It’s tempting to think this is all a niche, but it’s not. The pandemic accelerated the rise of self-employment and side hustles. Nearly half of Gen Z has some kind of freelance or entrepreneurial endeavor. Many millennials now hold wealth in digital assets, not just traditional portfolios. And these clients are getting married, asking questions, and looking for attorneys who speak their language.
Additionally, these considerations are not just relevant to purely online businesses or personalities. The increasing relevance of social media marketing to any type of business has made it a potential concern for any entrepreneur who might one day have to divide assets. We recently reviewed a prenup for a plastic surgeon whose practice had become a social media juggernaut. He had millions of followers, a YouTube channel, and a growing audience that brought in speaking opportunities and ad revenue. The draft prenup he received from his fiancée’s attorney focused entirely on the surgery centers and traditional revenue sources. There was no mention of the social media platform’s value or the IP he was generating online. If the marriage had ended and our client wanted to challenge the prenup, the omission of such a substantial income source—clearly developed and monetized during the relationship—could have called the agreement’s fairness and enforceability into question.
The Takeaway
The modern prenup is no longer just about “protecting wealth.” It’s about protecting value—some of it tangible, much of it not. As family lawyers, we have an opportunity to evolve with our clients, to help them plan smarter, and to recognize that love in the digital age comes with new risks and new responsibilities.
We need to stop thinking of prenups as a legacy tool for trust fund kids and real estate investors. They’re now an essential document for anyone whose identity, income, or intellectual property lives even partially online.
Drafting a prenup in 2025 means going beyond “what do you own?” and into “what might this be worth in five years?” “Is it scalable?” “Can it be licensed?” “Is there a copyright or trademark involved?” We need to start thinking like IP lawyers, brand consultants, and sometimes even digital economists.
This is not only necessary in order to disclose the valuation of these assets at the time the prenup is being negotiated and signed, but also necessary for accurate disclosures of future growth and valuation to ensure that a prenup is not later held unenforceable for lack of proper disclosures. Knowing the upside of any business will also help the attorneys drafting the prenup ensure that a prenup is not later held unconscionable for being extremely one sided.
Here are a few of the questions we ask clients in our practice:
- Do you or your partner own a business that operates online?
- Is your personal name or image tied to that or any brand?
- Are you monetizing your content through platforms like TikTok or Substack?
- Have you purchased or invested in any digital currencies or assets?
Once we understand the scope of the digital footprint, we can start crafting protections that reflect reality. Maybe it’s a clause that keeps IP created before marriage separate. Maybe it’s a valuation clause that defines how a business will be appraised if there’s a dispute. Or maybe it’s a revenue-sharing agreement that accounts for collaborative content.
Because in 2025, the question isn’t just “what do you own?” It’s “what have you built, and how do we protect it—together or apart?”
