Complex Wall Street Salary Situation Adds Up to Extra Work for Divorce Counsel
It’s either the best of times or the worst of times for financial executives to get divorced right now, depending on your perspective.
Restrictions on pay for many Wall Street financial executives, since the global economic crisis and government bailout that have taken place during the past 18 months or so, can be an advantage for divorcing breadwinners, attorney Robert Stephan Cohen tells Bloomberg.
Lower pay, the New York celebrity divorce practitioner notes, means less money to be awarded in alimony.
But deferred and restricted bonus compensation can make it very difficult to determine what assets are available to divide, racking up additional legal costs, according to the article. Meanwhile, stock options could well be worth more later than they are now, giving spouses with lower earning potential an incentive to stay with the marriage and await a sunnier economic climate before seeking a dissolution.
The situation is already paying off, however, for practitioners, contends managing director George Stein of Commodity Talent, which recruits hedge fund and bank executives.
“This will be a cash machine for divorce attorneys who are making the solutions out to be more complicated than they are or should be,” he says.
Topics: Career & Practice
Motley Rice has filed 'barrage of claims' for drug cartel victims; is there an endgame?
Your Voice
A BigLaw suicide survivor's prescription for the legal profession's mental health crisis
Podcasts
