When Wall Street Couples Cash Out

From the LA Times:

The flood of cash into so-called hedge fund communities in New York, Connecticut and California has proved fatal to many marriages — and a windfall for lawyers, psychiatrists and forensic accountants who specialize in the superrich.
“There is no question that a huge infusion of wealth to relatively young people has a disastrous effect on the marriage’s stability,” says Bern Clare, a Manhattan divorce lawyer.
Divorce hedge fund-style often means the judges involved must cope with pre- and post-nuptial agreements, years of fights over access to hedge fund accounts and monetary demands well into eight and nine figures.
“When you are dealing with the uber-wealthy, you are dealing with the uber-lawyers,” says Kevin Tierney, the presiding judge of the family division in the Stamford-Norwalk district of Connecticut, where many hedge fund families live. “They have accountants and paralegals and dueling experts.”
Further complicating matters is that the value of the assets involved, unlike real estate or jewelry, is highly variable, depending on the gyrations of the stock market and other investments.
“You can have an asset change by $1 million while a witness is on the stand,” Tierney says.

Posted by on June 19th, 2007 at 11:38 am


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