Provinziano and Associates

11/03/2026

When a teenager becomes emancipated in California, their parents’ duty to support them generally ends too.

Emancipation is often framed as the rights a minor gains, but it comes with a flip side: the minor becomes responsible for rent, food, living expenses, and any agreements they sign. For divorced or separated parents, a child’s emancipation can end ongoing child support even before the child turns 18. It does not erase unpaid support from before that date, and automatic paycheck deductions can keep running until the order is formally updated.

What emancipation changes for both the minor and the parents is on our blog.

Learn what emancipation means in California, who qualifies, the rights and responsibilities of emancipated minors, parental consent rules, and alternatives.

11/02/2026

When Lena Waithe and Alana Mayo divorced, it was after a relationship that, like many, began long before the wedding itself.

Setting their case aside, it points to something a lot of couples don’t think about: California uses the same prenup law for everyone, but the history a couple brings to the marriage can change what that prenup needs to cover. For couples, including many same-sex couples, who built a life together for years before marriage was an option, a home, a business, or a registered partnership from those earlier years can already carry real property rights, long before “I do.”

If a couple was together for years before they married, should a prenup account for all of that history? Curious how people see it.

10/30/2026

In California, marital property is generally divided 50/50. Halloween candy follows different rules, and most kids will tell you they are the sole owner.

Happy Halloween to every family sharing the night across two homes.

10/29/2026

In California, a prenup can’t decide who gets custody of your kids, no matter what it says.

A prenup is a powerful tool for property and finances, but it has hard limits when it comes to children, and for same-sex couples building a family through assisted reproduction, surrogacy, or adoption, those limits are worth knowing early. A court decides custody based on the child’s best interests at the time of the dispute, and California protects a child’s right to support regardless of what parents agreed to before marriage. A prenup can cover how a couple shares certain fertility or adoption costs, but it can’t make legal parentage depend on who paid, and it isn’t where parentage gets established in the first place.

What a prenup can and can’t decide for your family is on our blog.

Does a California prenuptial agreement for same-sex couples work differently? The law is the same, but your years together can change what yours must cover.

10/29/2026

France and California sit on opposite sides of the world, but for the families we represent, the distance between them is where cases are won or lost.

That’s why our Managing Partner, Alphonse Provinziano, in his capacity as President of the Beverly Hills Bar Association and a Fellow of the IAFL: International Academy of Family Lawyers, traveled to Washington, D.C. for the French Lawyers and Friends of France International Law Conference, an event notable enough that France’s Ambassador to the U.S. recognized the BHBA in his first official address in the country.

The conversations cut straight to what cross-border families actually face: whether France or the United States is the better forum, how immigration issues shape a case, and how France and the U.S. are each approaching AI and cybersecurity. Different systems, same families caught in between.

Representing French clients in California divorce matters has long been one of the most rewarding parts of our work, and conferences like this are how the relationships that make that work possible get built. Our thanks to Justice Attaché Anthony Manwaring for the vision behind it, and to Ambassador Aurélien Lechevallier for the kind words about the BHBA.

10/28/2026

A California custody order may carry far less weight in India than parents expect.

India is not a party to the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. As Indian family law attorney Ranjit Malhotra explains to our Managing Partner, Alphonse Provinziano, Indian courts typically treat a foreign custody order as one factor among many rather than the deciding one. They may look at the full circumstances of the child before reaching their own conclusion.

That’s why no attorney can promise that a child taken to India will be returned. In California, courts may consider abduction risk factors when making custody orders (Family Code §3048), and in cases with international ties, those safeguards often need to be in place before travel happens, not after.

10/27/2026

Getting married does not automatically cancel an agreement you signed years earlier.

A lot of couples assume the wedding wipes the slate clean. It often doesn’t, and for same-sex couples who built a life together long before they could marry, that can matter even more. In one California case, two partners signed a domestic partnership agreement waiving any claim to each other’s estate, then married and never signed a new one. When one died, the court held the marriage did not cancel that waiver, and the surviving spouse received no share of the estate. The wording of an earlier agreement can still control, long after the wedding.

Why earlier agreements have to be read before you sign a prenup is on our blog.

Does a California prenuptial agreement for same-sex couples work differently? The law is the same, but your years together can change what yours must cover.

10/24/2026

Olivia Wilde and Jason Sudeikis settled their custody dispute out of court, agreeing to share parenting of their two kids rather than letting a judge decide every term.

Setting their case aside, it reflects how California actually prefers to handle contested custody. When parents disagree, the court sends them to mediation first, a process focused only on custody and parenting time, to see whether they can build a workable plan before a judge makes the call. Mediation doesn't force an agreement, but it gives parents the first chance to shape the outcome themselves.

Should parents be required to try to agree on custody before a judge steps in?

10/22/2026

Their divorce was finalized in 2024. The litigation over their shared business isn’t expected to reach trial until 2027.

Our Managing Partner, Alphonse Provinziano, spoke with The Sun to break down what this high-profile case reveals about divorce: how a custody ruling can be undone when a private judge fails to disclose a conflict, why informal agreements over a shared business can turn into years of court, and why resolving matters privately often limits the damage.

We broke the full conversation down on our blog: https://provinziano.com/blog/what-happened-to-brangelina/

10/20/2026

You can be divorced in California and still be married in India.

Our Managing Partner, Alphonse Provinziano, spoke with Indian family law attorneys Ranjit Malhotra and Mrunalini Deshmukh about what happens when a couple married under the Hindu Marriage Act of 1955 divorces in the United States.

Indian courts have generally held that parties married under the Act should be divorced under it, unless both spouses voluntarily submit to the foreign court. A divorce granted over one spouse’s objection may be open to challenge in India under Section 13 of the Code of Civil Procedure.

In California, a court can terminate marital status separately from property and support issues (Family Code §§2337). For couples with ties to India, how and where that status is ended may matter just as much.

From the Beverly Hills Bar Association International Family Law Podcast.