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Navigating High Net Worth Divorce and Complex Financial Matters

Last reviewed by Rita Herrera Irvin, 11/26/25

Overview

High net worth divorces often involve complex assets, business interests, executive compensation, and financial questions that require careful analysis. In this video, McKinley Irvin partner David Starks explains how experienced legal and financial guidance can help individuals understand their assets, protect what they’ve built, and make informed decisions during divorce.

Title: Navigating High Net Worth Divorce and Complex Financial Matters
Speaker: David Starks, Partner, McKinley Irvin

Key Takeaways

  • Know your financial landscape. Business owners, executives, and high-income earners often face unique questions during divorce, including valuation issues and how to divide complex assets.
  • Executive compensation is often misunderstood. Restricted stock units, bonuses, and deferred compensation require careful analysis to determine value and division.
  • Choose an attorney who understands financial complexity. Experience with balance sheets, financial statements, and investment structures is essential in high-asset cases.
  • Teamwork strengthens outcomes. Building the right team — attorneys, financial experts, forensic accountants, and valuation professionals — helps clients protect their interests.
  • Clear guidance brings clarity. The goal is to distill complicated financial issues into practical next steps and a strategy forward.

Transcript

David Starks, Partner:

I think for anybody who's looking for an attorney, you kind of know yourself what issues you probably have, right? So, if you're a business owner, obviously you've got concerns about how that business might be valued and whether your business is going to be broken up or whether you can leave with it. And if you've got lots of restricted stock from an employer, you're wondering whether that's got value and how you're going to have to divide that up, if you do.

So, certainly, you want to look around for an attorney who has a lot of experience in working with those kinds of issues. And I've had the good fortune in my career to have spent a lot of time previously representing brokers and dealing with financial spreadsheets, dealing with going over accounts, and understanding how a balance sheet works. And those things have allowed me to really grow a practice where I can sit down with a client and really understand how their business works or how their—whatever might be some complicated issue for them—to really be able to distill it for them and help build a team that's going to fix whatever the issue is and come up with the way we go forward. So, it's been one of my favorite parts of my practice: helping folks that are going through those issues.