Can you explain what the difference is? And in simple real life terms, why does it matter during divorce?

Yeah, so there's a lot of these buzzwords that you hear when you're getting divorced.

And so I find it our job as the lawyers to sort of explain that to our clients in plain English.

So essentially, the equitable distribution means dividing up of your assets.

It means all property and not just real like real property, but bank accounts, retirement accounts, investment accounts, cars, artwork and homes, investment, everything that falls under an asset.

And the way that we do that is by classifying the assets, at least in New York, where I'm based.

as either marital property or separate property okay so under the law marital property is anything that you earn during the marriage regardless of title so that means that when you earn income from your employment it goes into a bank account in just your name It is still considered marital because you earned it during the marriage, even though it's just in your name.

What about things like businesses or debt?