Bride and groom racing around a track carrying a document

I’m not normally one to follow celebrity gossip, but I am a legal news junkie. A recent news article about two celebrities captured my attention as it relates to family law. Television host Jeannie Mai has asked the judge presiding over her divorce from rapper Jeezy not to enforce their prenup. Her reasoning? She did not have enough time for a prenuptial agreement the couple signed.

This is a facially legitimate challenge. As we explain in our article on Attacking & Enforcing Prenuptial Agreements, it is okay for a prenup to be completely one-sided in favor of one spouse (except on spousal maintenance). Indeed, protecting a richer spouse’s wealth at death or divorce is the purpose of a prenup, so being unfair from a substantive perspective is a feature, not a bug. The only real way to attack a prenup is to prove procedural flaws.

Specifically, Mai claims that the couple only began negotiating their prenuptial agreement five days before their 2021 wedding, an abbreviated timeframe that tainted the process by not giving her sufficient time to consider the prenup or financial disclosures. For good measure, Mai also threw in a challenge to the adequacy of Jeezy’s financial disclosures.

For his part, Jeezy filed for divorce in Fulton County, Georgia, in September 2023 and filed a motion to enforce the prenup terms in December.

How Much Is Enough Time for a Prenuptial Agreement?

There are two sides to every story, and upon seeing Mai’s claim of just having five days to negotiate the prenup, my initial thought was skepticism – that was pretty much lightning speed, which legitimately calls into question the fairness of the process and legitimacy of the prenup. So surely this allegation was a mistake, and emails or other correspondence would surface to prove that she had enough time for a prenuptial agreement rather than waiting until the week of their wedding to start the negotiations.

Rapper Jeezy singing

But no – in his December motion, Jeezy acknowledged that the couple signed the prenup just one day before their wedding. However, he argued that this was sufficient time and that the prenup nonetheless met the standards under Georgia law. In particular, Jeezy and Mai each had independent counsel to assist them with the prenup negotiation and drafting.

Note that while Colorado has adopted the Uniform Premarital & Marital Agreements Act (UPMAA) to determine the validity of prenuptial agreements, Georgia has adopted neither that act nor its predecessor, the Uniform Premarital Agreements Act (the UPAA, which was in effect in Colorado until 2014), but instead has its unique state laws.

As I’m not a Georgia attorney, the subject of this blog post would be to analyze whether Jeezy & Mai had sufficient time for their prenup for it to be valid under something I am familiar with – Colorado law.

Prenup Five Days Before Wedding

The first red flag is that the prenup was signed the day before the wedding, and negotiations only started five days before. On its face, that does not seem sufficient time for a prenuptial agreement – I don’t know about that couple, but if they are like most of us, the week of their wedding, they have a thousand other things going through their mind and would struggle to focus on an important document like a prenup.

Under the UPAA, in effect in Colorado until 2014 and which remains in effect in half of the country, a prenup signed the day before the wedding is still potentially enforceable. There are Colorado cases from the UPAA era holding that a prenup signed the day of the wedding was valid (Ross, although that case was unique in that the signed version was substantially the same as the prenup the couple had been negotiating through counsel), as well as prenups signed the day before the wedding (Newman) and two days before the wedding (Lopata).

Colorado Prenup Standard – “Reasonable Time” to Obtain Counsel

But Colorado no longer has that relaxed time standard. Our statute now requires that the party against whom enforcement is sought had “access to independent legal representation.” C.R.S. 14-2-309(1)(b). And that term is defined as:

“reasonable time to:

(I) Decide whether to retain a lawyer to provide independent legal representation; and

(II) Locate a lawyer to provide independent legal representation, obtain the lawyer’s advice, and consider the advice provided”

C.R.S. 14-2-309(2)(a)

Five days seems a ludicrously short time to decide whether to consult with a lawyer and act on the lawyer’s advice and normally, I would agree that it is not enough time for a prenuptial agreement.

But hold everything – Jeezy points out that both spouses had lawyers. Having a lawyer proves not only that each spouse had sufficient time to obtain counsel, but having counsel pretty much destroys most arguments about not understanding the prenup or feeling pressured to sign it.

My conclusion? If this prenup were being interpreted under Colorado law rather than Georgia, it would be dead in the water if Mai had no lawyer. But having a lawyer almost certainly means she had sufficient time for the process. While this is not a slam dunk for Jeezy, I like his chances of prevailing.

Prenup Needs Adequate Financial Disclosures

Mai also claims that Jeezy did not provide her with a “transparent and detailed view” of his “assets, liabilities and overall financial standing.” From the article, it’s impossible to discern what specifically she is complaining of – were Jeezy’s disclosures incomplete? Were the values inaccurate? Did Jeezy amalgamate his assets instead of itemizing each individual account?

Colorado law requires that the spouse seeking to enforce the prenup must have provided “adequate financial disclosure” to the other spouse, which means the other spouse either:

“(a) Receives a reasonably accurate description and good-faith estimate of value of the property, liabilities, and income of the other party; or
(c) Has adequate knowledge or a reasonable basis for having adequate knowledge of the information.”

C.R.S. 14-2-309(4) (There is no subsection (b) – it was repealed)

Note that unless your fiancé was also your CPA who knew your money situation better than you, relying upon “adequate knowledge” as an alternative to actually providing the details is asking for trouble.

So, the spouses need to disclose the value of their property, their liabilities, and their incomes. No word on whether this must be broken out by account or can be combined, but a spouse who wants the prenup to be enforced would provide complete details.

At Graham.Law, we have an itemized disclosure form detailing each individual source of income, each individual asset (except minor ones like furniture or frequent flyer miles), and each individual debt. And if we represent the higher-earning spouse, we go the extra yard and provide corroborating financial statements for each item on the disclosure form. Most reputable lawyers insist on similar disclosures for a prenup/postnup as the law requires for divorce – in other words, we leave nothing to chance.

If Jeezy’s disclosures were inadequate, Mai has a shot at this. But she had a lawyer!! And her lawyer presumably could have sought clarification, asked for more details, and otherwise had the opportunity to review everything provided, even if Mai personally lacked the time. Then, her lawyer could advise her of the disclosures and any red flags.

Lawyers are great – everyone should have one or two. But the flip side is that if you have a lawyer, it’s really difficult to argue you didn’t know what you were doing or that your lawyer didn’t ensure that your fiancé provided you the disclosures you needed.

Conclusion – Don’t Try This At Home

Reputable family law firms don’t cut corners. Several family law attorneys in southern Colorado know what they are doing, and as long as the client is forthcoming with their financial disclosures, the prenups we draft will withstand challenges years in the future.

As we explain in this post, getting a solid prenuptial agreement means a lengthy process (ideally 60 days or more) and comprehensive (if in doubt, disclose). Paying attention to detail is worth it if it means the difference between a prenup that will hold up versus one that is vulnerable to attack.

But despite their wealth, it looks like Jeezy and Mai cut corners. No clue whether they hired inexperienced counsel or only decided belatedly to get a prenup, and their attorneys were pros who did everything imaginable quickly to produce a decent prenup.

Whichever it was, a prenup should not be an afterthought. Starting the process months before the wedding (no less than 60 days, ideally up to 120 days) means that in the days before your wedding, you are focusing on that special day with the person you love and not wrangling over the details of a prenup as you are finalizing wedding plans.

How much time is enough time for a prenup? Ideally, more than five days!

Addendum – We Will Never Know!

In June 2024, Jeezy and Mai settled their divorce with a confidential agreement. That’s great for their privacy, but it also means that legal voyeurs will never know the facts surrounding their prenup or how a court analyzes whether a few days was coercive or enough time for a prenuptial agreement since both had counsel.

Award-Winning Colorado Prenuptial Agreement Attorney

Enough time for a prenuptial agreement

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