A prenuptial agreement is not a bet against your marriage — it is the one contract that lets you and your future spouse, rather than a judge you have never met, decide what happens to what you have built. Mack Law P.A. drafts, negotiates, and reviews prenuptial and postnuptial agreements for clients across Orlando and Central Florida, with the same discretion and trial-lawyer's eye the firm brings to its high-net-worth divorce practice. Flat-fee engagements are available and quoted plainly at your consultation.
Why the lawyer who litigates divorces should write your prenup
Most prenups are drafted by lawyers who have never had to defend one. That shows, years later, in the clauses that fail. Michael T. Mackhanlall has spent his career in Central Florida's family courtrooms litigating the exact disputes a prenup is supposed to prevent — alimony exposure, the character of commingled assets, the valuation of a business one spouse built while the other raised the family. When you know precisely how opposing counsel will attack an agreement in a dissolution case, you draft differently: tighter definitions, cleaner disclosure schedules, execution practices that leave nothing for a judge to doubt.
Florida enforces properly made premarital agreements under section 61.079, Florida Statutes — the state's version of the Uniform Premarital Agreement Act, which governs agreements signed on or after October 1, 2007. The statute is short. The case law interpreting the words "voluntary," "fair and reasonable disclosure," and "overreaching" is not. Everything on the pages below is built around one goal: an agreement that holds when it is finally read in anger, ten or twenty or thirty years from now.
The Pre/Post Nup practice
The Pre-Nup Process, Step by Step
An interactive walk through the whole engagement — from the first conversation to the vault — with the deadlines that matter along the way.
Asked to Sign a Prenup?
Independent review for the fiancé(e) who was handed an agreement. What to look for, what to negotiate, and why signing unrepresented is the worst option.
What Can (and Can't) Go In It
Property, alimony, death benefits, attorney's fees, pets, privacy — and the terms Florida law will not let you touch, starting with child support.
Timing: How Long Before the Wedding
Why the calendar is a legal issue, not a scheduling one — voluntariness, duress, and the schedule we actually recommend.
Complete Financial Disclosure
What "fair and reasonable disclosure" means in practice: the schedules, the documents, valuing a business, and what happens when someone hides the ball.
Execution & Independent Counsel
Signing formalities Florida actually requires — including the two-witness rule that applies to estate waivers — and why each side needs their own lawyer.
The Drafting Mistakes That Sink Prenups
The recurring errors litigators exploit: vague schedules, commingling blind spots, ERISA traps, boilerplate from another state's statute.
Enforcing It 20 Years Later
An agreement is only as good as your ability to produce and defend it decades on. Safekeeping, amendments, moving states, and beating a challenge.
Postnuptial Agreements
Already married? Different statute, different disclosure rules, different attack surface. What changes after the vows — and when a postnup is the right tool.
Who actually needs one
The honest answer: more people than ask for one, and not only the wealthy. In our practice the recurring profiles are unmistakable. The business owner, because a company started before the wedding does not stay non-marital by itself — its appreciation, and anything commingled with household finances, can be pulled into equitable distribution. The professional building a practice — physicians, contractors, agents — whose future earnings and goodwill are the real asset. The spouse entering a second marriage with children, who needs property to pass to those children instead of defaulting through Florida's elective share and intestacy rules. The person expecting an inheritance, which stays separate only if it is never commingled — a discipline a prenup can define in advance. The higher earner, for whom the 2023 rewrite of Florida alimony law (no more permanent alimony, durational caps tied to the length of the marriage) narrowed but did not eliminate exposure. And, just as often, the lower earner — because a well-negotiated prenup can guarantee more certainty than the statute does, on a schedule both spouses chose.
What Florida law requires, in plain terms
Under section 61.079 a premarital agreement must be in writing and signed by both parties; the marriage itself is the only consideration required, and the agreement takes effect the moment you marry. The parties may contract about property rights and management, disposition on separation, dissolution, or death, the making of wills and trusts, life insurance death benefits, choice of law, and — within limits — the modification or elimination of spousal support. Two lines in the statute do the real work later. First: a child's right to support may never be adversely affected. Second, the enforcement subsection: an agreement fails if it was signed involuntarily, if it was the product of fraud, duress, coercion, or overreaching, or if it was unconscionable when signed and the challenging spouse got neither fair disclosure, nor a written waiver of disclosure, nor adequate knowledge of the other's finances. Every page in this section traces back to those defenses, because every well-drafted prenup is really a document engineered to survive them.
Agreements signed before October 1, 2007, and all postnuptial agreements, are tested instead under the framework of Casto v. Casto, the Florida Supreme Court's decision governing marital settlements — a distinction that matters if you are updating or defending an older agreement.
Both sides of the table
We take both engagements: drafting for the spouse who wants the agreement, and independent review for the spouse who was handed one. We will not do both in the same marriage — Florida ethics rules and common sense agree that one lawyer cannot serve two clients whose interests are being divided. Whichever chair you sit in, you deal directly with the attorney, your file stays confidential, and the fee is quoted before you commit. Most drafting and review engagements are handled on a flat fee.
Common questions
Most prenuptial engagements — drafting or independent review — are handled on a flat fee quoted at the consultation, once we understand the assets involved and how much negotiation is likely. You will know the number before you commit to anything. Be wary of comparing against $500 internet templates: the cheap document that fails a disclosure or voluntariness challenge is the most expensive one you can buy.
Yes. Florida adopted the Uniform Premarital Agreement Act as section 61.079, and its courts routinely enforce agreements that were signed voluntarily, on fair disclosure, without overreaching. The agreements that fail share the same handful of defects — rushed signings, hidden or vague finances, unconscionable one-sidedness with no disclosure, sloppy execution. Every one of those is preventable at the drafting stage.
No. Section 61.079 says a child's right to support may not be adversely affected by a premarital agreement, and Florida courts decide time-sharing at the time of the case based on the child's best interests — not based on a contract signed before the child existed. A prenup that tries to fix custody or cap child support invites a judge to look skeptically at the rest of the document. We draft around the limit instead of pretending it isn't there.
Probably not too late, but the calendar is now a legal issue, so call promptly. Florida has no statutory minimum period between signing and the wedding, yet timing is central to the voluntariness defense — an agreement first presented days before the ceremony is far easier to attack. Six weeks is workable if disclosure starts immediately and the other side gets a real opportunity for independent counsel. See our timing page for how we run a compressed schedule without creating a duress argument.
Florida does not make independent counsel mandatory — and that is exactly why skipping it is tempting and dangerous. An unrepresented spouse is the centerpiece of nearly every overreaching argument. Separate counsel converts "I didn't understand what I signed" into a documented negotiation between advised parties. It is the single cheapest piece of enforcement insurance you can buy, and we insist on offering the other side the genuine opportunity every time we draft.
No — that is a postnuptial agreement, and Florida enforces those too, under the Casto framework rather than section 61.079. The rules differ in ways that matter: disclosure obligations are stricter after marriage, and the fiduciary posture between spouses changes the analysis. Read our postnup page, or call and we will tell you which instrument fits your situation.
A properly drafted agreement travels well. Most states enforce prenups under their own version of the UPAA or comparable law, and a Florida choice-of-law clause — expressly authorized by section 61.079 — anchors the interpretation. What does not travel well is sloppy execution: a signing that satisfied Florida but not the stricter formalities a future state might apply. We execute to the strictest common denominator precisely because clients move. More on our enforcement page.
Getting married — or handed an agreement to sign?
Call (407) 749-1034 or request a confidential consultation. Flat fees quoted plainly, before you commit.
General information about Florida law — not legal advice, and no attorney-client relationship is created by reading it. Statutes and authorities referenced include § 61.079, Fla. Stat., § 732.702, Fla. Stat., ch. 2023-315, Laws of Fla., and Casto v. Casto, 508 So. 2d 330 (Fla. 1987) (verified July 2026). Every situation turns on its own facts.