Short answer
Nevada law does not require each fiancé to hire an attorney before signing a premarital agreement (NRS 123A.040; NRS 123A.080). Nevertheless, separate counsel is strongly recommended. Independent legal advice can provide evidence that the agreement was understood and voluntarily signed, and can help identify disclosure problems or unfair provisions. It does not guarantee enforcement, and the agreement remains subject to Nevada’s statutory requirements concerning voluntariness, unconscionability, and financial disclosure. The person who benefits most from that advice is often the one who paid to have the agreement drafted.
One of the most common questions we hear at Lyon Law goes something like this:
“Can you just draft the prenup, and my fiancé will sign it?”
It is a reasonable question. You are paying the legal bill. You are the one with the business, the inheritance, or the house you bought before you met. Bringing a second attorney into the process sounds like an unnecessary expense and an awkward conversation to have three months before your wedding.
The short answer is yes, with one important limit. An attorney can draft the agreement for you, and you can present it to your fiancé. What that attorney should not do is represent both of you. Your lawyer works for you and only you, which is why we recommend your fiancé retain their own counsel to review the agreement before they sign it.
This is not because we are being difficult, and not because we want to send you a bigger bill. It is because a prenuptial agreement signed by someone who never had their own lawyer is a more fragile document, and the person most likely to be hurt if it is later challenged is often the person who paid to have it drafted.
Here is why.
Can One Lawyer Represent Both Parties in a Nevada Prenup?
A prenuptial agreement allocates property, income, and spousal support between two people. Terms that protect one of you will often come at the expense of the other. That is the nature of the document. Your interests and your fiancé’s interests are, at least in part, opposed, even if you are both approaching the conversation in complete good faith.
Because a prenup ordinarily requires the lawyer to advance terms that may benefit one prospective spouse at the expense of the other, representing both parties presents a serious conflict-of-interest problem. A Nevada lawyer should analyze the applicable conflict rules before undertaking any joint representation, and Lyon Law does not undertake it.
There is an important distinction here. A lawyer who drafts a prenup for one of you while the other remains unrepresented is not representing both parties. That lawyer represents exactly one of you. The other person is not a client and is not owed legal advice. The drafting lawyer’s obligations to them are limited: make clear whose side the lawyer is on, and recommend that they get a lawyer of their own. Beyond that, nobody in the room is responsible for looking out for their interests.
Courts understand this. And that is precisely where the problem starts.
Does Nevada Law Require a Lawyer for a Prenuptial Agreement?
Nevada’s Uniform Premarital Agreement Act, found at NRS Chapter 123A, sets out when a premarital agreement will and will not be enforced. Its only formal requirements, under NRS 123A.040, are that the agreement be in writing and signed by both parties. Nowhere does it say that each party must have their own attorney.
People read that and conclude that independent counsel is optional. As a matter of statute, it is. But the statute also sets out the grounds on which a prenup can be attacked, and independent counsel is some of the strongest evidence you can have on nearly all of them.
Under NRS 123A.080, a premarital agreement is not enforceable if the person challenging it proves any of the following:
- They did not sign it voluntarily
- The agreement was unconscionable when it was signed
- Before signing, they lacked fair and reasonable financial disclosure, did not voluntarily and expressly waive additional disclosure in writing, and lacked adequate—or reasonably obtainable—knowledge of the other party’s property and obligations
Now consider what a challenge looks like ten years later. Your spouse’s attorney stands up and tells the judge that your spouse was handed a document drafted by your lawyer, that nobody ever explained what community property rights they were giving up, that they had no one to ask, and that they signed because the wedding was already paid for.
What is your answer?
If your spouse had their own lawyer, your position is far stronger. The record shows they were advised, had the chance to negotiate changes, and signed with knowledge of what they were waiving. That does not end the inquiry, but it answers most of the argument.
If they did not, you are arguing about what somebody understood in a conversation with no lawyer present. That is a bad position to be in, and it is entirely avoidable.
What Makes a Nevada Prenup Hold Up in Court?
A prenuptial agreement is more reliable when each person has a genuine opportunity to obtain independent legal advice before signing. A meaningful review generally requires more than simply handing someone a completed document or arranging a brief meeting with another lawyer.
The reviewing attorney should have sufficient time to examine the agreement, review the financial disclosures, explain the rights being affected, answer questions, and recommend revisions where appropriate. The reviewing party should also be able to meet privately with counsel and decide whether to sign, negotiate, or decline the agreement.
These safeguards do not guarantee enforcement. They do, however, help establish that the agreement was entered into knowingly and voluntarily and that the parties had an opportunity to address incomplete disclosures or unfair terms.
The Nevada Supreme Court has said as much. In Sogg v. Nevada State Bank, 108 Nev. 308, 832 P.2d 781 (1992), the court held that people who are engaged to be married stand in a presumed fiduciary relationship, and that a presumption of fraud arises when a premarital agreement greatly disfavors one of them. Whether that presumption is overcome turns on factors such as whether the disadvantaged party had ample opportunity to consult an independent attorney, was not coerced into a rushed decision, had the business acumen to understand the transaction, and knew the other party’s finances and the rights being given up. In Sogg, the husband’s attorney had selected the wife’s lawyer and arranged the appointment, the meeting was brief and interrupted, she was pressed to sign shortly before the wedding, and the agreement was held invalid. Sogg predates Nevada’s adoption of the Uniform Act, but the Nevada Supreme Court has applied its reasoning to agreements governed by NRS 123A.
How Your Fiancé’s Attorney Protects Your Prenup
This is the piece most people miss.
When your fiancé retains their own attorney, you are not hiring an obstacle. You are building the record that supports enforceability.
Consider what independent counsel does for the four most common lines of attack:
- Understanding. Independent advice may provide strong evidence that the party understood the agreement and the rights being affected, but it does not conclusively defeat a later challenge
- Pressure. A claim of coercion is harder to sustain when the party had independent advice about whether to walk away, and time to act on it. Counsel is evidence on that question, not an automatic defense
- Disclosure. A claim that they did not know what you owned is harder to sustain when their lawyer reviewed your financial disclosures and asked follow-up questions. But that only works if the disclosures were actually made and complete. As Fick shows, a reviewing attorney cannot cure a missing schedule
- Unconscionability. Terms that the other side’s lawyer negotiated are more likely to reflect a fair exchange. Even so, unconscionability is decided by the court as a matter of law under NRS 123A.080(3), based on the terms and circumstances at the time of signing, and negotiation alone does not establish enforceability
An agreement that the other side’s lawyer helped shape is often harder to attack than one they were simply handed. If your prenup matters enough to draft, it matters enough to make as durable as you can.
There is also a practical reality worth naming. Prenups tend to get tested at the worst possible moment, often decades later, when there is far more money at stake than there was on the day you signed. The cost of independent counsel today is typically modest compared with the cost of litigating enforceability during a divorce.
Planning a prenup, or reviewing one your fiancé’s lawyer drafted?
Lyon Law drafts premarital agreements and represents the non-drafting fiancé throughout Nevada, from Reno and by video consultation statewide. Schedule a consultation.
Common Questions About Using Two Prenup Attorneys
Will a prenup make our engagement feel adversarial?
It feels adversarial when it is sprung on someone. It does not feel adversarial when it is raised early, framed honestly, and handled with a real timeline. The couples who have the worst experience with prenups are almost always the ones who started too late. Many couples find the financial disclosure conversation genuinely useful, because it forces a discussion most people postpone until after the wedding.
Does having two attorneys double the cost of a prenup?
In practice, it often does not. Drafting is usually where most of the work happens. A reviewing attorney often spends less time than the drafting attorney, and the fee generally reflects that. And whatever the two bills add up to, compare that figure to the cost of defending the agreement against an enforceability challenge in family court.
Can I pay for my fiancé’s prenup attorney and pick someone I know?
Your fiancé should select their own attorney from their own research. You may offer to pay the fee, and that is generally fine, but the choice has to be theirs and the advice has to be genuinely independent. A lawyer you selected is a lawyer opposing counsel will one day describe to a judge as your lawyer. That is close to what happened in Sogg, and the agreement did not survive.
Do we need separate lawyers if we trust each other completely?
Trust is a good reason to get married. It is not a legal defense. The agreement has to stand up in front of a judge who does not know either of you, possibly long after the circumstances that produced it have been forgotten.
How to Draft a Nevada Prenup That Holds Up
If you want to give a Nevada prenuptial agreement the best chance of holding up:
- Start early. Nevada law does not prescribe a minimum review period, but presenting the agreement well before the wedding provides time for disclosure, independent advice, negotiation, and a voluntary decision. A document signed the week of the ceremony may invite a duress argument and creates greater litigation risk, regardless of how fair its terms are. Our recommendation, not a legal requirement, is to begin the drafting process at least four to six months before the wedding
- Disclose everything, in writing, on an attached schedule. Accounts, real property, business interests, retirement, debts, expected inheritances. Inadequate disclosure is one of the statutory grounds on which an agreement can be challenged, and it is the ground that sank the alimony waiver in Fick
- Let your fiancé choose their own attorney. Give them time to do it. Do not recommend anyone
- Let them meet with that attorney privately and without a deadline hanging over them. No interruptions. No pressure. No ultimatums
- Sign well before the ceremony, with both attorneys documenting the process
Asked to Sign a Prenup? Get Your Own Nevada Attorney
Everything above applies to you, too, and more urgently.
If your fiancé has presented you with a prenuptial agreement, that document was written by someone whose job is to protect their interests, not yours. You are entitled to your own lawyer, and you should have one, whatever the timeline looks like.
Reviewing a prenup for the non-drafting fiancé is a meaningful part of our practice at Lyon Law. It is usually a shorter and less expensive engagement than drafting, and it is the best way to know what you are actually signing away under Nevada’s community property rules.
Speak With a Nevada Prenuptial Agreement Attorney
Lyon Law handles prenuptial and postnuptial agreements throughout Nevada, from our office in Reno and by video consultation statewide. We draft agreements, and we represent the reviewing party. We do not represent both parties to the same agreement.