Divorce Planning

A divorce can be a high stress time. With 75% of the issues in a divorce being financial, it is important to have someone on your team who understands the divorce process and can help you achieve a settlement that works not only today, but 10, 20, or 30 years down the road.

With that in mind, Michael has earned a designation as a Certified Divorce Financial Analyst™.

A CDFA™ is someone who comes from a financial planning, accounting, or legal background and goes through an intensive training program to become skilled in analyzing and providing expertise related to the financial issues of divorce. The CDFA™ becomes part of the divorce team, providing litigation support for the lawyer and client, or becomes a member of a Collaborative Law team. In either event, the CDFA™ will be responsible for:

• Identifying the short-term issues and long-term effects of dividing property.
• Integrating tax issues.
• Analyzing pension and retirement plan issues.
• Determining if the client can afford the matrimonial home - or identify an affordable alternative.
• Evaluating the client's insurance needs.
• Establishing assumptions for projecting inflation and rates of return.
• Bringing an innovative and creative approach to settling cases.

The Certified Divorce Financial Analyst™ also:

• Provides the client and lawyer with the date that shows the financial effect of any given divorce settlement.
• Appears as an expert witness if the case should go to court, mediation or arbitration.
• Is familiar with tax issues that apply to divorce.
• Has background knowledge of the legal issues in divorce.
• Is trained to interview clients so as to collect financial and expense data in order to help identify future financial goals and developing budgets. 

With that in mind, if you or a loved one is facing the stress and uncertainty of an impending divorce, you or your lawyer should give us a call. We would like to help.