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Lake Perriguey helped bring marriage equality to Oregon. And soon after the state began to legally recognize same-sex unions, he put up a shingle as a divorce lawyer, taking out ads at Cinema 21 featuring two grooms on a wedding cake and the admonition to call him “when the honeymoon is over.”
And Perriguey started getting calls almost immediately after—it took a month, he says—from couples looking to dissolve. But all of them, he notes, had been together for years. Some needed to figure out how to separate assets that were commingled. Or their assets were not formally commingled—say, if only one partner’s name was on the deed of the house, but both partners had lived there for years. Courts had wide discretion to do what was “fair and equitable under the circumstances.” That, he says, is where lawyers come in.
“Is it fair and equitable that someone should just be able to be thrown out on the street with nothing when they had a committed kind of long-term relationship where they talked about the future, but one person’s name wasn’t on the on the deed?” Perriguey says. “But they landscaped the entire yard. They did all the interior design. They worked with the architects. They had sweat equity in it, and they probably put money toward it, too. But just because they’re not on the deed, should the court be without power to give them some equitable interest?”
There were other, thornier cases, he says. Cases where people had registered as a domestic partner in one state and ended that relationship without formally dissolving the partnership, then got married in Oregon after marriage equality—and discovered the Oregon marriage was “void from the beginning” and had to be annulled. But also that even with an annulment, exes can be entitled to spousal support.
Perriguey also handles adoption and custody cases, but he’s best known for helping make same-sex marriage a fact of life in Oregon a year before the Supreme Court’s landmark Obergefell v. Hodges ruling. He and co-counsel Lee Ann Eastman were lead counsel on Geiger v. Kitzhaber, the lawsuit that, in 2014, led to a ruling by federal judge Michael McShane that overturned the state’s ban on same-sex marriage.He also filed briefs that led to the overturning of Oregon v. Ciancanelli, which prohibited live sex shows in the state. He’s also represented a Portland man who was asked to surrender his hard drive when he was accused of pirating movies, and strippers who were sued for defamation when they made wage and discrimination claims against Casa Diablo in 2015.
Perriguey grew up in New Mexico and attended St. Johns College, which doesn’t offer traditional majors, but instead a curriculum focused on reading the classic works in a variety of areas of study. After college, he lived in Provincetown, Mass., and then Austin, and then came to Portland to attend law school after getting arrested at a protest of Texas’ anti-sodomy laws.
“I just felt super vulnerable [in jail], but also thought I had the aptitude to read all those statutes and translate them so that people could understand what they meant, because I was good at doing that,” Perriguey says.
After graduating from Lewis & Clark Law School in 1998, Perriguey decided against going to work for a firm, instead meeting with clients in his studio apartment in Northwest Portland. He made $12,000 that first year, he says. (Perriguey has since moved into an office in Goose Hollow, and this past summer, he purchased a house in the Southwest Hills with a view of the whole city, a sauna, and an outdoor shower. “I haven’t taken a shower indoors since July,” he says.)
And in addition to working on free speech, privacy and family law cases, Perriguey has officiated several marriages as a Universal Life minister. But he’s never been married himself—and he’s not interested.
“I handled the gay marriage case because I wanted the equal right to say ‘I don’t,’” Perriguey says. “Before, I couldn’t say ‘I don’t.’ It wasn’t an option, right? But now I can affirmatively say, ‘Oh, I have this option, and I don’t.’”
What to Know Before You Commit
Don’t be afraid to talk about money. “Talking about money and making a plan around that is sexy. It brings people closer together,” Lake Perriguey says. Sometimes people are afraid to talk about money because of childhood trauma or simply because they don’t want to kill the vibe—but avoidance doesn’t help, Perriguey adds. “Just talk about it, read a book about it, get some confidence around that subject, because it’ll save you so much money later on.”
Prenups aren’t just for rich people. “If prenups are for rich people, then so is marriage…rich people know that they don’t want to spend a bunch of money on a divorce. They’re used to saving money and have free time to think about how much more money they can save,” Perriguey says. He recommends buying or checking out a book about prenuptial agreements and maybe creating a draft agreement, then shopping around for lawyers. It doesn’t need to be expensive, but each partner should have their own lawyer.
Before moving in together, have a frank talk about money. And consider a cohabitation agreement. “It doesn’t have to be notarized, you don’t have to have a lawyer, but you could have a cohabitation agreement,” Perriguey says, “setting out what everybody’s expectations are, and what happens if you break up. It can be as detailed as possible.”
If you really mean “’til death do us part,” make a will. In Oregon, wills don’t have to be notarized and you don’t have to have a lawyer, but it can help to have one—and your will needs to be signed by two witnesses who are not beneficiaries. (Perriguey suggests you find out if your employer has an employee assistance program since such programs often offer low-cost legal benefits.) You should also consider adding your partner as a beneficiary on any bank accounts or insurance policies.
