Other wives of lawyers

ntromano · March 2014

Dont get too excited. He's not the fancy kind of lawyer! My husband is a sole practitioner,meaning he owns and operates his own law firm. Sounds cool, but it's hard sometimes. Anyway, I'm his wife. We were married 2 years ago, and we discussed having joint accounts before we got married. Or, I should say, we agreed to merging our financial accounts in the near future. He seemed resistant, but we ultimately agreed that it was important to have access to one account, in case of an emergency. No, I didn't want credit cards. Just a checking account that I could have access to for the purpose of paying heat, phone, groceries, etc. keep in mind I also work full time and contribute to our household. Anyway, we still don't have a joint account. He finds any excuse to not do it. He wants to move to a city where it will be difficult for me to find gainful employment, and told me yesterday that he cant have joint accounts because he's a lawyer. WHAT. I know the answer to my own question here, BUT are there other female attorneys out there who run their own practice that might be able to shine light on this? I know the COLTAF rules ( in Colorado, lawyers have a separate account for funds that come from clients that they haven't T officially earned yet, and then when the work is done, the money moves into their personal checking.) I'm honestly considering a divorce. I'm frustrated and if we move, I won't have income. If my name isnt on his account, I'll have to ask for money. (?) Any insight would be much appreciated. Do

strickland8052 · March 2014

I don't have a clue what the laws are regarding him having to have a separate account. BUT, it sounds like y'all need to have a serious talk about this move thing and joint checking account issue. Do you know why he doesn't want a joint checking account? Ask him to be honest and consider his concerns. Maybe y'all could reach some kind of compromise? Maybe y'all could each have separate accounts for "fun" money and joint accounts for joint expenses like rent/mortgage, groceries, utilities. If you move to another city and can't find a job, is he willing to support you financially until you do get a job? If so, y'all need to discuss a way for him to give you money in a non-degrading way. Maybe he can have a portion of his paycheck directly deposited into your account? Personally, I don't think you HAVE to have a joint checking account to be a good couple, but you MUST work together as a team. You both should have the same goals like retirement, future children, home down payment, vacation together, etc. so you shouldn't be battling over "my money" vs. "his money. It should all be "OUR" money. If you feel like he is being selfish and wanting all of "his" money to himself and not wanting to help you through unemployment (caused by him wanting to move) then he is not being a team player. However, if he doesn't mind helping you and working together with you, but he just doesn't want a joint-checking account for whatever reason, then I wouldn't be worried. My husband and I do not have joint checking accounts, and it works great. We both manage money completely different, so it would just drive us crazy if we physically saw each others expenses coming out of one account. We do however work together like a team and we always think of everything as "our money", so I'm not concerned about the joint-checking account issue with us.

hoffse · March 2014

There aren't laws or rules about personal joint accounts - H and I have joint accounts, and I'm a lawyer and he's a law student.

BUT I am currently salaried and will continue to be salaried until I partner (assuming that happens someday). H will also be salaried until he's a partner.

If your H is a solo practitioner, he's essentially already partnered.

The odd thing to me about what your H is saying is that he's correct that keeping things separate could be wise... but if he really wants to shield your assets, it makes more sense for everything to be in your name only.

The reason is because lawyers get sued by disgruntled clients on a fairly regular basis, and there's some wisdom in dispersing your assets to make yourself judgment-proof. Most of the lawyers I know keep big assets in their spouses name. A couple of my colleagues have recently purchased homes, and as they say, "My spouse has all the title. I have all the debt." The idea is that if you get sued for malpractice, you want the person to sue for your malpractice insurance amount, not the value of your personal assets. If the house isn't in my name, nobody can sue me for it. Same thing for bank accounts, etc.

And partners are much MUCH more likely to get sued than associates. They are ultimately the ones responsible for work product.

H and I aren't sure what we're going to do if both of us partner someday. We've talked about using a trust, but there are some complexities with that. Anyway, for lawyer/non-lawyer (or doctor/non-doctor, accountant/non-accountant, etc.) couples, keeping things separate is smart once the lawyer has reached a point where s/he is the billing partner for various client matters. But the house, the bank accounts, etc. should probably be in your name, not his, if he wants to keep your marital assets safe.

Anyway I guess I'm calling BS on this. It seems to me like he just doesn't want you to be able to access the money he earns, and I find that concerning. I suppose there's a chance that he's just heard you're supposed to keep things separate, and he's never really thought about HOW or WHY you keep things separate. But I mean... it isn't rocket science. And lawyers are supposed to think about things like liability... that's basically the entire reason our profession exists.

**None of this is legal advice. I'm not your lawyer, and I'm definitely not licensed in Colorado. I've never even been to Colorado.

vlagrl29 · March 2014

I'm not an attorney and neither is DH, but I wouldn't trust him. Someone that doesn't want to join money with his wife and move to a place where you can't find a job. That's just not right. It's kind of deceiving as well. He told you before marriage that he was cool with joining money and now he is not. What else is he hiding?

ntromano · March 2014

Lawyer or not, I really appreciate the insight from all of you on this. Hoffse, I fully realize that you are not intending to give me legal advice, and I appreciate your efforts to point that out. Regardless, it is really thoughtful of you to respond this way and outline that for me, because, as smart as I can be sometimes, when I am running this hot emotionally, it is difficult to sort reason from fiction. Thank you again for all of the insight.

I am also very concerned that he's hiding something. The moving thing is kind of moot, because, in any case, if we eventually had children, I would stop working full-time and might go to part-time or on-call (I'm a librarian). What would I do then? It is very scary at this point, and I am considering my options in terms of speaking with a CO attorney to help me sort all of this out. I make enough to support myself now, but I am not interested in giving everything up to move to a place where there aren't any 'givens.'

I so, so appreciate all of your help, ladies. He's definitely a little shady, so we'll see how things pan out and what my options are now. Thanks a lot again.

ntromano · March 2014

Oh, and one last note: to be fair, I did apply for one job in the town where he is thinking we should move. I don't have any professional connections there, so I do not know what their HR climate/hiring process is like. The city is relatively small, about 130,000 people, and it is economically depressed. As with many things in life, you do what you can and try to be flexible, but I cannot guarantee that I can get this job, and my fear is that he will give me an ultimatum and say, "we move or we split." Anyway, for the purposes of full-disclosure, and in the spirit of trying to be a reasonable person, I thought I would add that little note

MommyLiberty5013 · March 2014

Just curious, why does he want to move his own business to a place that is economically depressed? What kind of business could he possibly generate there? Economically depressed places are tough for self-employed people.

emily1004 · March 2014

My dad is a retired attorney, however he worked as legal council for the auto industry. It was all in-house and he was never partner anywhere. My mom and his accounts were always and still are together.

My H's uncle is the founding partner in a mid-sized firm, (whom I work for) and he's divorced. He and his ex kept everything separate. Hence the reason for the divorce. (I'm sure there was more to it then that). My point is, I think you have a bigger problem here: You don't trust him. In my marriage, that's a deal breaker.

This is also in no way legal advice as I (a paralegal) am not authorized to give it.

Hoffse is just protecting herself with the disclaimer she added in her post.

You'd be surprised how many people think they are getting legit legal advice on public forums, so it's important to make it vehemently clear, I am not.

vlagrl29 · March 2014

Trust your gut. I've been married before to someone that was not the right person for me and he like your H said all this stuff that we agreed on before marriage and then changed his tune after marriage. If you H is that concerned about his assets he should have done a pre nup, or maybe he did. Please, Please do not have kids with this man until you figure all this out. You would be tied to him for 18 years if you do so. I don't mean to sound jaded, but I guess I kinda am. I made a stupid mistake when I was in my early 20s and really only my current DH can handle the person I am now.

hoffse · March 2014

OP, Emily is right - I'm just protecting myself with my disclaimer. I have to write it any time a topic even semi-legal comes up to comply with the ethics rules I'm subject to.

So once again - this is not legal advice because you aren't my client, and I'm not licensed in Colorado. Likewise, I am certainly not giving you tax advice.... but if you are contemplating divorce, I would suggest you find an attorney who can deal with the tax consequences of divorce in addition to the division of assets. Depending on how you structure the divorce, some things are taxable and other things are not. My tax prof in law school got divorced the semester before she taught us, and I remember her showing us how she structured the divorce to bring her tax bill down to $0. I think she also arranged things to nail her ex with some extra tax liability that he only discovered after the fact....

Anyway, it saved her a ton of money by structuring it the way she did - enough that it would probably be worth paying the legal fees to have somebody do it right from the outset. I don't remember the details of how she structured it, but I do recall being impressed and actually sort of intimidated by how savvy (and ruthless) it was.

I don't know that you need a tax lawyer per se for this (hopefully not because their fees are much higher than your general practitioner). But I would make sure that your lawyer doesn't look at you like you're speaking Greek when you bring up tax liability. They should be conversant in it.

blondie42107 · March 2014

Neither H or I are in law, however I do have a professional license and as a result I could be sued although my employer has a legal team and coverage. It would be pretty unlikely I would be sued directly....

Anyway if my husband didn't want joint accounts I would be very concerned. We view our income and assets and debts as joint regardless of whose name is on it. We are 100% equal.

One of my best friends worked while her husband went to graduate school. She always made a huge deal about how it was her money because she made it. They had so many flights about it. They also kept separate accounts. So she would get annoyed when he would ask for money. I asked why they didn't have a joint account and she said they couldn't because they didn't make enough money... ???

The week after H and I got married, we joined our accounts.

ntromano · April 2014

Hi everyone,

Again, thanks for all of the thoughtful comments. Great advice here. I am glad someone brought up the tax liability issue; didn't even think of that as part of a divorce. I know some women who have gone through this, and it's best to hire someone who is pretty well-versed in divorce matters before hiring them. From what I hear, in some cases, it can be easy to botch a divorce.

The trust issue is clearly what gets me. I also should add that my job provides our health insurance -- did I already say that? -- oops if I did. But I am the insurance carrier, and so moving would present a pragmatic cost in terms of losing my benefits, including the loss of contributions to my retirement account.

I am not a gold-digger. I hate that term, but I'm not trying to squeeze our accounts dry. I would like transparency and honesty, and I think that part of being transparent is communicating about money and making things extremely visible, joint accounts or not. I know successful couples who have been married 25 years + and have separate accounts for whatever reason. But for me, it is becoming more and more difficult to live with the excuses du jour.

Many, many thanks again, ladies.

short+sassy · April 2014

On the tax liability issue, I had a friend who was briefly married to a surgeon. She worked also, but made a substantially smaller income. Unfortunately, they were only married for six months (he cheated and admitted it). So...married six months...but their divorce issues dragged on for YEARS. From what I understand, one of the biggest issues is he wanted her to pay him for half of his tax liability on his income for the year they were married (or something like that).

I know it isn't the norm, but I've never seen a problem with separate accounts and can understand if that is someone's preference. HOWEVER, the caveat to that is finances and how they are managed are always something that couples should be able to discuss together and work out a compromise if there are different attitudes.

In addition, I would be very uncomfortable if my husband wanted me to move for his job...forcing me to quit my job...moving me to an area where it would be difficult for me to find another one...and STILL insist that all his money is his money and I can't have access to it short of asking him for it, as if I am his wayward child.

Good luck, ntromano. I hope everything works out for you.

daisy662 · April 2014

I'm sorry you are going through this. I am not an attorney, but thought I'd give my 2 cents anyway... When I married my husband,I assumed we would join our accounts together. We never really talked about it until after we were married (stupidness hindsight, I know...) for some reason was against it. I think he thought I was going to try to control his spending or something. It was kind of odd because I make a ton more money than he does so it was definitely to his benefit to combine. He thought about it and agreed it made ore sense. We combined and it has been fine since. My point is, I think you need to find out why he doesn't santo do this, the real root cause. The whole thing seems strange to me. Especially the moving part why does he want to move to an economically depressed area?.? Good luck!

xc1148 · April 2014

Trust your gut...what you said is exactly right. Don't put yourself in a situation where he has all the money and you can't access the accounts. If he doesn't want joint accounts, you need to focus on your career/earnings.

My husband and I have separate accounts but that is due to our supreme laziness (changing bills, etc). If I asked him to merge them it wouldn't be a problem. It's all shared money, so I never understand people that insist on separation.

KonaCoffeeBean · April 2014

Interesting. I am a Colorado attorney. In my experience, Coltaf really has no bearing on your personal finances if you our business is structured properly. My husband and I only have joint accounts.

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