Practice Area · Professionals
Professional practices in divorce.
A medical, dental, or law practice is a business only its licensed owner can own — which changes everything about how it's valued, divided, and paid for. These cases sit at the intersection of valuation law and licensure reality.
The Valuation Fight
Goodwill, and whose it is.
Practice value usually lives in goodwill — and the decisive question is how much of it belongs to the enterprise (systems, staff, location, patient base) versus the professional personally. Layered on top: normalizing the owner's compensation against what an employed peer earns, because the excess is return on the practice — and the same earnings can't fund the valuation and the support award twice. I've cross-examined practice appraisers for decades; the assumptions are where these cases are won.
The Structural Reality
Only the licensee can own it.
Licensure means the practice can't simply be split — the professional keeps it, and the marital value gets equalized through offsets against other assets or a structured buyout built around the practice's real cash flow. Partnership and shareholder agreements add consent rights and valuation formulas of their own that the divorce must respect. Done well, the practice never notices the divorce: patients keep their appointments, partners keep their distance, and the buyout terms are ones the practice can actually service. That's the standard I draft to.
Common Questions
Asked between patients.
Will I lose my practice?
No — as a practical matter, licensure means the practice stays with you; only you can own it. The real questions are its value, the goodwill allocation, and how the equalization is structured. Those are winnable questions with the right preparation.
My spouse says the practice is worth millions. Is it?
Perhaps — or perhaps that number double-counts your own future labor as if it were a sellable asset. The personal-versus-enterprise goodwill analysis exists precisely to test claims like that, and it's an analysis I know from both sides of the courtroom.
How do I pay a buyout without gutting the practice?
With structure: terms matched to real cash flow, security the other side can trust, and tax treatment that doesn't waste money on either side. A buyout the practice can't service isn't a settlement; it's the next dispute.
The rest of this chapter.
Closely held businesses, professional practices, executive and equity compensation, trusts, real estate, and the tracing that decides what is marital and what is not.
- Business Valuationthe number that decides the case→
- High-Asset Divorcecomplex estates, disclosure, and the five-year rule→
- Business Owner Divorcekeeping the company you built→
- Complex Financial Divorcevalue, characterize, tax-effect — then divide→
- Property Divisionequitable, not automatic 50/50→
- Separate Propertya records-management discipline→
- Spousal Maintenancethe formula, published with a worked example→
- Executive Compensationproperty or income — the line worth arguing→
- Stock Options & RSUstax character changes real value→
- Trust Intereststhe instrument, not the balance, decides→
- Real Estatevalue, equity, and after-tax proceeds differ→
- Retirement AssetsQDROs, and three different currencies→
- Professional Practicesgoodwill, licensure, and buyoutsYou are here
- Tax Strategythe settlement that matters is the after-tax one→
- Hidden Assets & Forensic Discoverythe disclosure duty, and the five-year hammer→
- Cryptocurrency & Digital Assetsfindable, valuable, divisible→
- Married to the Business Ownerleveling the information field→
- Income Determinationwhat “income” means when you own the company→
Engagement
You built the practice patient by patient. The case should respect that.
A consultation is a scheduled working session — in person in Greenwood Village or by video — in which we go through your situation and I tell you what I would do. It is a paid meeting, not a free call and not a sales pitch; my assistant quotes the consultation fee when you schedule. There is no chatbot here: the contact form and the phone both reach my office, my assistant reviews every inquiry personally, and the meeting goes on my calendar. Please hold the confidential details until we have run a conflicts check.