What the highest-profile engagement in America can teach family law practitioners about IP-heavy estates, choice of law, and the limits of standard templates.

If this couple walked into your office, what would the agreement need to do?

I find this hypothetical useful precisely because it is extreme. Most of us will never draft for a client with a ten-figure estate built almost entirely on intellectual property. But the issues this fact pattern surfaces (separate property characterization of IP, active appreciation, choice of law across multiple domiciles, confidentiality architecture) show up in scaled-down form in ordinary high-net-worth matters all the time.

The asymmetry problem

Swift's estate is reportedly in the neighborhood of $1.6 billion, the bulk of it tied to her music catalog, including the master recordings she reacquired in 2025, her publishing rights, and touring revenue. Kelce is wealthy by any normal measure, with career NFL earnings north of $100 million plus substantial podcast and endorsement income, but the disparity is roughly an order of magnitude.

Asymmetry of this size changes the drafting posture. The wealthier party's counsel is thinking about separating out all premarital assets, appreciation, etc. The less wealthy party's counsel should be thinking about two things: bulletproofing any potential procedural issues and meaningful consideration. An agreement this lopsided that also leaves the less-monied spouse with nothing is exactly the kind of agreement a court looks at skeptically under an unconscionability analysis, even in jurisdictions where substantive review is limited. Smart drafting for the wealthier party often means building in tiered provisions (escalating lump sums or property transfers keyed to length of marriage) not out of generosity, but because a facially fair agreement is an enforceable agreement. Of course, Travis Kelce, the less monied party in this scenario, would never be left destitute and on public assistance in reality.

Choice of law is… complicated

This couple illustrates the conflict problem beautifully. Kelce's professional life is anchored in Missouri. Swift maintains residences in Tennessee, New York, and Rhode Island. Where they marry, where they live, and where a hypothetical divorce would be filed may be three different answers.

Tennessee and New York have not enacted the Unified Premarital Agreement Act (UPAA); neither has Missouri, though its case law is generally enforcement-friendly. New York gives prenups strong deference under DPL § 236(B)(3) if executed with the required formality (signed and acknowledged in the manner required for a recorded deed, a technicality that has sunk more than one celebrity agreement). Rhode Island adopted the UPAA. Each jurisdiction treats spousal support waivers, second-look review, and disclosure standards differently.

The drafting answer is a choice-of-law clause, obviously. But practitioners know the clause is not self-executing. Some states will apply their own law to support waivers regardless of the parties' selection, on public policy grounds. For clients with genuinely multi-state lives, I draft to the strictest plausible forum: full financial disclosure with schedules even where waivable, independent counsel for both parties with documented engagement, execution well before the wedding, and formalities that satisfy every jurisdiction in play, including New York's acknowledgment requirement. Belt, suspenders, and a second belt.

The IP problem, or why "separate property" is not enough

Here is where the fact pattern gets genuinely interesting for drafters. Declaring Swift's catalog separate property is trivial. The hard questions are all downstream:

Future royalties on premarital works. Income earned during the marriage from a premarital asset is, in many jurisdictions, marital or community property absent agreement. A catalog generating hundreds of millions annually means the "income from separate property" clause is not boilerplate; it may be the single most valuable sentence in the document.

Active appreciation. If separate property appreciates during the marriage due to the efforts of either spouse, many states treat that appreciation as marital. Swift's catalog does not passively appreciate; it appreciates because she re-records, tours, licenses, and manages it. Without an explicit provision characterizing appreciation (both passive and active) of premarital IP as separate, the wealthier party's counsel has malpractice exposure.

Works created during the marriage. An album written and recorded during the marriage is presumptively marital property in most jurisdictions. Same for Kelce's podcast revenue, NIL-style deals, and any post-retirement media career. The agreement has to decide, in advance, whether each party's professionally generated IP during the marriage remains that party's separate property. Most agreements at this level say yes, each keeps their own, with clear rules for jointly created works (imagine a duet, a co-authored book, or a shared production company).

Right of publicity. Both parties have names, images, and likenesses worth eight or nine figures. The agreement should characterize each party's publicity rights and their revenue streams as separate property, and address post-divorce use restrictions, including the delicate question of whether either party can commercially reference the marriage itself after it ends. Which brings us to the songwriter problem: Swift's catalog is famously autobiographical. Can the agreement restrict creative works about the relationship? A flat prohibition raises First Amendment-adjacent enforceability questions and is likely unworkable. More realistic is a liquidated damages structure tied to breach of specific confidentiality covenants, not to creative expression generally.

Confidentiality and lifestyle clauses

Confidentiality provisions in this fact pattern are not vanity terms; they are asset protection. The reputational and commercial value at stake for both parties dwarfs most clients' entire estates. Expect robust NDAs covering financial terms, private communications, and family matters, with liquidated damages provisions. Drafting note: liquidated damages must be a reasonable forecast of harm, not a penalty. With parties whose brands are demonstrably monetized, quantifying reputational harm is actually easier than usual, which strengthens enforceability.

Infidelity clauses and other lifestyle provisions? California courts have voided them (Diosdado v. Diosdado) as contrary to no-fault policy, and most sophisticated counsel steer clear. They generate press coverage and litigation risk in equal measure while delivering little.

The takeaway for your practice

Strip away the fame, and this is a case study in three disciplines: draft to the strictest plausible jurisdiction rather than the most convenient one, treat income and appreciation from separate property as first-order issues rather than boilerplate, and remember that for IP-heavy and brand-heavy estates, the prenup is doing the work of a business succession plan. Your dentist client with a practice, your novelist client with a backlist, your founder client with QSBS stock: same issues, smaller numbers.

The value of the agreement is not just the document. It is that two people were required to disclose everything, sit with independent counsel, and have the hard conversations about money before the vows instead of after. That is true whether the estate is $1.6 billion or $160,000.