For couples drafting or reviewing prenuptial agreements in Charleston, Berkeley & Dorchester counties. Send a confidential message — we'll reply by email or phone, whichever you prefer.
Hall & Means drafts and reviews prenuptial agreements for couples across Charleston, Berkeley, and Dorchester counties. A well-drafted prenup is a planning document, not a pessimism document — it documents financial expectations, protects pre-marital assets, and makes a marriage's financial framework explicit before life events can complicate it. We work with first-time prenups, business owners, second marriages, blended families, and couples with significant disparities in pre-marital wealth.
Why Hall & Means
Mary Ann Hall and Jessica Means lead Hall & Means together, representing clients through divorce, custody, alimony, and the financial planning that precedes them. Prenuptial agreements live at the intersection — done well, they preempt the most painful financial conflicts. Both attorneys focus on family law in the 9th and 1st Judicial Circuit Family Courts.
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Three-county family law practice across the 9th and 1st Judicial Circuit Family Courts, with a local network of mediators, financial professionals, and asset valuation experts.
You work with Mary Ann or Jessica. Your calls and emails are returned by your attorney — not screened by a paralegal, not routed to an associate.
What to expect
From the first call to a signed agreement, the path is the same for every client. We tell you what's happening, what it costs, and what choices are yours to make — before we ask you to commit to anything.
Phase 1
You reach out by phone or message. One of our staff or firm team members responds — typical response time within 24 hours. Confidentiality starts with the first interaction. The first conversation is focused on understanding your financial situation, the wedding timeline, and whether both of you will have independent counsel.
Response within 24 hoursPhase 2
We schedule a 2-hour consultation and review the financial picture (assets, debts, businesses, anticipated inheritances). An initial retainer is quoted at that consultation, based on the complexity of your case — initial because the final cost depends on how negotiations unfold with the other side's counsel.
Attorney-client privileged from word onePhase 3
If we're a fit, we put a representation agreement in place. We coordinate full asset and debt disclosure between both parties — one of the three conditions for the statutory presumption that the agreement is fair — and draft the agreement. A well-drafted prenup anticipates the scenarios that come up later, which is what a court examines if it is ever challenged.
Drafting on your timeline, well before the weddingFinal Phase
We negotiate with the other party's counsel on terms you've authorized, revise the draft, and finalize the signed agreement — comfortably before the wedding, not on the eve of it. You retain authority over substantive decisions. We handle procedural matters (drafting iterations, scheduling, coordination with opposing counsel) without asking permission for each step. Throughout, you work directly with Mary Ann or Jessica.
Direct attorney access throughoutPrenuptial agreements in South Carolina
South Carolina enforces prenuptial agreements when they meet specific requirements. Drafting matters. So does timing.
A prenuptial agreement can protect pre-marital assets, allocate ownership of a business interest, define how debt brought into the marriage stays separate, waive or limit spousal support, address how appreciation of separate property is treated, and document expectations around inheritance or future gifts. It can also coordinate with estate planning — particularly important in second marriages with children from prior relationships.
A prenup cannot predetermine child custody or visitation — South Carolina courts will not enforce those provisions because they're decided in the children's best interest at the time, not in advance. A prenup cannot waive child support (the child's right, not a parent's right). And a court can decline to enforce an agreement that was unconscionable when it was signed, or one that changed facts and circumstances would make unfair and unreasonable to enforce. Some things you simply cannot contract around.
South Carolina judges a prenup on the facts around its signing. Under S.C. Code § 20-3-630(A)(4), an agreement is presumed fair and equitable when it was signed voluntarily, with both parties separately represented by counsel, and after full financial disclosure of income, debts and assets. Under Hardee v. Hardee (2003), a court can set an agreement aside for fraud, duress, mistake, misrepresentation or nondisclosure; if it was unconscionable when signed; or if changed facts and circumstances would make enforcing it unfair and unreasonable. Reasonable lead time before the wedding is not a statutory requirement, but it is the practical way to show the signing was voluntary.
The closer to the wedding, the higher the coercion risk. Start the conversation early.
Common questions
What couples ask before they sign, and what South Carolina law actually requires. Every agreement turns on its own facts. To talk through yours, request a confidential consultation with Hall & Means at (843) 377-1341 or through the contact form on this page — our office is at 1816 Belgrade Avenue, Ste. 101, Charleston, SC 29407, in West Ashley.
South Carolina courts decide that under a three-part test the state Supreme Court adopted in Hardee v. Hardee (2003). Was the agreement obtained through fraud, duress, or mistake, or through misrepresentation or nondisclosure of material facts? Is the agreement unconscionable? Have the facts and circumstances changed since it was executed so as to make its enforcement unfair and unreasonable? That test comes from case law, not from a statute.
Separate counsel is not a validity requirement, but the statute rewards it. S.C. Code § 20-3-630(A)(4) says an antenuptial agreement must be considered presumptively fair and equitable so long as it was voluntarily executed, with both parties separately represented by counsel and with full financial disclosure. That is a presumption, not a validity test. South Carolina's Court of Appeals calls independent legal advice a significant consideration.
No South Carolina statute or court rule requires notarization. The Statute of Frauds, S.C. Code § 32-3-10, reaches any agreement made upon consideration of marriage and asks two things: that it be in writing, and that it be signed by the party to be charged. A South Carolina court will not enforce an oral prenuptial agreement. No witness requirement appears in that chapter either.
Yes. The South Carolina Supreme Court held in Hardee v. Hardee (2003) that prenuptial agreements waiving alimony, support and attorney's fees are not per se unconscionable and are not contrary to the public policy of this state. Whether a particular waiver is enforced is decided under the three-part Hardee test. In that case the waiver held, while the same agreement left property acquired during the marriage open to equitable distribution.
No. South Carolina family courts have continuing jurisdiction to do whatever is in the best interests of the child regardless of what an agreement specifies. The South Carolina Supreme Court stated that rule in Moseley v. Mosier (1983) and applied it again in Singh v. Singh (2021), a Charleston County case holding that children's issues cannot be sent to binding arbitration. The rule reaches custody, visitation and child support.
South Carolina sets no deadline. No statute and no family court rule imposes a waiting period before the wedding. Timing is still evidence. In Holler v. Holler (2005) the Court of Appeals weighed a signature six days before the wedding, an expiring visa, and a spouse who never retained counsel, and found duress. In Hudson v. Hudson (2014) an impending-wedding argument was rejected.
An agreement signed after the wedding is a postnuptial agreement, and nothing in South Carolina forbids one. No South Carolina statute uses the word postnuptial. S.C. Code § 20-3-630(A)(4) keeps property excluded by written contract of the parties out of the marital estate, and that phrase is not limited to antenuptial agreements. South Carolina's appellate courts have said far less about postnuptial agreements than about prenuptial ones.
South Carolina has not answered that in a published decision. No published South Carolina opinion applies a choice-of-law clause in a premarital agreement. What a South Carolina family court does is decide whether the agreement in front of it is valid and enforceable under the Hardee test. Hall & Means reviews agreements signed in other states for clients in Charleston, SC, including service members stationed in the Lowcountry.
This page is general legal information, not legal advice, and does not create an attorney-client relationship. South Carolina law changes and every case turns on its specific facts. Consult a licensed South Carolina family-law attorney about your situation.
Get in touch
Submit the form and we'll reply within one business day — by email or phone, whichever you prefer. Everything you share is protected by attorney-client privilege from the first message.
Phone
Office
1816 Belgrade Avenue, Ste. 101
Charleston, SC 29407
Hours
Monday – Friday, 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM
