Practice Area · The Process
Common law marriage.
Colorado is one of the few states that still recognizes marriage without a license or ceremony. Which means the first fight in some cases isn't how to divide the estate — it's whether a marital estate exists at all.
The Threshold Question
A fight worth everything before it's worth anything.
If a common law marriage exists, everything acquired during it is presumptively on the table — the business, the appreciation, maintenance, the entire architecture of divorce law. If it doesn't, the parties are unmarried, and property follows title. No other single question in family law swings outcomes this completely, which is why these cases are litigated with the intensity of the fortunes riding on them.
The Modern Test
Hogsett changed the frame.
In Hogsett v. Neale (Colo. 2021), the Colorado Supreme Court refined the test: a common law marriage exists when the parties mutually agreed to enter a marital relationship and their conduct manifested that agreement. The old checklist factors — cohabitation, joint accounts, shared last names — still matter as evidence, but no single factor is required, and the inquiry now centers on the parties' intent in the context of their actual lives. The same decisions confirmed that common law marriage principles apply equally to same-sex couples, including relationships predating marriage-equality rulings.
What the Evidence Looks Like
Intent is proven with paper and witnesses.
These cases are won with the record of ordinary life: beneficiary designations, insurance enrollments, tax filings, deeds and leases, how the couple introduced each other, what family and friends observed, anniversary cards, joint obligations. Each item is small; the accumulation is the case. I build — or dismantle — that record the way I build a valuation fight: document by document, witness by witness.
Both Sides of the Argument
I take these cases from either chair.
Sometimes my client needs to establish the marriage — years of partnership, a shared enterprise, and a partner now claiming they were merely roommates with a joint checking account. Sometimes my client needs to defeat the claim — a relationship being retroactively upgraded to marriage precisely because a business became valuable. The analysis is identical; only the advocacy points in different directions. What matters is engaging the Hogsett framework seriously, because courts now do.
Protecting Yourself in Advance
For the unmarried and successful, clarity is cheap.
If you're building wealth inside a long-term relationship and do not intend marriage, say so in writing. A cohabitation agreement — the unmarried sibling of the prenuptial agreement — documents intent while everyone agrees on it, which is exactly when documentation is possible. It is far less expensive than litigating your own relationship's legal status after it ends.
The rest of this chapter.
How a Colorado divorce actually moves: temporary orders, mediation and litigation, privacy, and what happens when an order has to be modified, enforced, or appealed.
- Divorce in Coloradohow the process actually works→
- Mediation & Litigationsettle from strength→
- Privacy & Discretionengineered from the first filing→
- Emergency & Protection Ordersthe automatic injunction, and urgent relief→
- Modificationswhich door you knock on matters→
- Enforcement & Contemptorders are only as good as their enforcement→
- Appealswon at trial, by the record→
- Common Law Marriagewhether a marriage exists at allYou are here
- Legal Separationsame process, different decree→
- Temporary Ordersthe first ninety days, governed→
- Attorney Fees & Costsfee-shifting and the level playing field→
- Protection Ordersthe shield, and the defense against it→
Engagement
Whether you need to prove a marriage or disprove one, the record decides. Let's build yours.
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