Fields and Dennis LLP

AAML October 2019 Meet This Fellow Questionnaire
Jonathan Fields
Wellesley, MA

1. What is your favorite Fall activity?
Hiking with our dogs in the New England woods, breathing in the crisp autumn air. Actually, not really – aside from going to the gym, we are all sort of homebodies. Netflix, Doordash, having people over for drinks and barbecue are more usual activities for us than extended walks in the forest.

2. If you were an animal, which would you be and why?
I would be our well-loved dog Patches, a 14-year-old hound mix.  He spends the day contentedly sleeping, sniffing, eating, and looking out the window. Sounds like a pretty good life for a creature without a human brain.

3. What’s your favorite aspect of being a matrimonial lawyer?
My practice is about half mediation and half traditional representation. In mediation, particularly, I enjoy navigating the psychodynamics of the parties and helping them come to agreement.

4. What would your autobiography be titled and why?
My parents moved us to Florence, Italy in 1969 where we stayed until 1976 – all of us Americans living in this wonderful city for many years. A snappy title for my autobiography eludes me at this point but, these years having been formative to my development, the title would certainly be a riff on my Italian years.

5. What are the first three things you would buy if you won the lottery?
“Give it all to charity” might be the best answer. But I would probably do something more selfish like renovate our house and buy a plane.

6. What actor would star as you in your biopic?
When I was in college and had more of an early eighties curly hairstyle, it might have been Tom Hanks of the same period. Not sure who would play me today – although my wife remarked that a recent DMV photo made me look like a female East German gymnast.

7. If you could have one superpower, what would it be?
The power to make unreasonable people settle their cases would be a nice superpower. Or invisibility – that would be cool too.

8. Do you have any hidden talents?
What are they? I just learned how to make the perfect hard-boiled egg.

Fields and Dennis LLP is proud to announce that senior paralegal, Rikki B. Saksik, will be honored at the Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly Event, “Excellence in the Law” for Excellence in Paralegal Work.  “I am so pleased that Rikki will be honored at this event.  She deserves an award as an absolutely outstanding paralegal.”  Jonathan E. Fields

“I am thrilled to be recognized for standing out and going above and beyond on a regular basis, not just professionally at the firm and with other colleagues, but also in my daily life as well.” Rikki B.  Saksik

Excellence in the Law celebrates excellence throughout the legal community in all of Massachusetts. Individuals are honored in the following categories: Excellence in Firm Administration/Operations, Alternative Dispute Resolution, Marketing, Paralegal Work, and Pro Bono. We also honor our Up & Coming Lawyers.

First things first: the ‘no-nup’ prenup
Vicki L. Shemin August 30, 2018

Remember the good ol’ days when two people met, fell in love, and got married?

Nowadays, not so fast. Increasingly, couples are rehearsing the relationship before deciding whether to plan a rehearsal dinner. As marriage rates have fallen, the number of cohabiting relationships has continued to climb sharply.

As reported by the Pew Research Center, the number of Americans living with an unmarried partner reached about 18 million in 2016, up 900 percent over the last 50 years.

To put a finer point on it, that equates to some 7.8 million couples living together without putting a ring on it — 85 percent of whom will break up by the end of 10 years.

Equally compelling is the Centers for Disease Control’s finding that 20 percent of first-time cohabitating women became pregnant and had a baby within the first year of living with their boyfriends.

At a time when the divorce business is booming but the remedies for the unmarried brokenhearted are virtually non-existent, savvy couples should be seeking to safeguard their respective best interests, as well as that of the relationship, by taking proactive and preventative measures.

Regardless of whether cohabitation is a stepping stone toward wedded bliss or an alternative to that institution altogether, couples ought to be duly cautioned to economic and legal realities that may well confront them if the time comes when they have to decide who takes custody of the puppy, the Porsche and the Pratesi.

The term “no-nup” has been coined to refer to agreements for those couples who will not be entering into prenups (as they don’t intend to marry) and/or for those who are both smart enough to know the future is uncertain and discerning enough to know protections are in order. In the event of a breakup, these bespoke contracts can be as simple or as complex — and as tailored — as befit the cohabitators.

What kinds of considerations should go into a no-nup? Especially if a purchase of real estate is involved, deciding how title is held could mean the difference between someone getting 50 percent or 100 percent of the property interest if the partner dies. Titling issues are easy and relatively inexpensive options to consider in order to avoid financial hardship if the affaire de coeur fizzles out.

Deciding who stays and who goes if the relationship goes south is another key consideration — and becomes all the more weighty if there is a child involved, or someone becomes ill or loses his or her job.

Legal options, such as joint tenancy agreements, are ideal for memorializing key decisions such as whose name will be on the deed and note, whether the property will be sold, whether a right of first refusal will be available, what will happen to the initial down payment, how appreciation will be addressed, how debts accumulated during the relationship will be assigned, and whose name gets put on the utility bills.

Agreements also can address how couples will contribute to the monthly nut: Will all expenses be paid 50/50 or in proportion to the cohabitators’ incomes? Operationally, how are the household bills going to be paid and exactly what types of bank accounts will be established? And even if there is only a lease involved, couples who do not commit to marriage ought to ensure that their mutual understandings are committed to writing.

No-nups can go a long way toward saving couples time and heartache if the relationship flatlines. Even more importantly, however, the experience of hammering out the economies of resource-sharing ahead of time can have the unexpected, non-economic benefit of strengthening and maturing the relationship.

So, before an unmarried couple is all in, they should bet on a no-nup and not leave to chance the legal entanglements that may well continue to bind them in unforeseen ways.

Vicki L. Shemin is a family law attorney and clinical social worker practicing at Fields & Dennis in Wellesley Hills. She can be contacted at vshemin@fdcattorneys.com