  We study the framework of hierarchical soft terms, in which the first two
generations of squarks and sleptons are heavier than the rest of the
supersymmetric spectrum. This scheme gives distinctive predictions for the
pattern of flavor violations, which we compare to the case of nearly degenerate
squarks. Experiments in flavor physics have started to probe the most
interesting parameter region, especially in $b\leftrightarrow s$ transitions,
where hierarchical soft terms can predict a phase of $B_s$ mixing much larger
than in the Standard Model.
