Why Divorce Attorneys Bring in a CDFA: 3 Real Cases

This post is written for divorce attorneys and other professionals. If you are going through a divorce yourself, our guide to collaborative divorce and mediation is a better place to start.

When a CDFA and a divorce attorney work a case together, the client gets a settlement that is documented accurately, implemented cleanly, and stress-tested before it is signed. When they do not, the gaps tend to surface after the decree, when they are expensive to fix. Below are three cases that show the difference, and the specific work we take off an attorney's desk.

A note on terminology

When "divorce" and "collaboration" appear in the same sentence, people usually mean the collaborative divorce process. That is not what this post is about.

The collaborative process provides an excellent framework for working together, and we serve as financial neutral in those cases. But most divorces are not collaborative cases, and the opportunity to collaborate exists in all of them.

Three cases, three very different outcomes

Case 1: No financial guidance during the divorce

A client contacted me two years after her divorce was final, looking for financial planning services.

As we started, I realised the assets had never been distributed according to her Separation Agreement. Digging further, the language in the agreement meant she had lost out on significant investment returns across those two years. Additional legal documents still needed to be filed before anything could be transferred to her. She had also moved a long way from where she divorced, so she had to re-engage her former attorney to handle the filings.

We got everything moved into her name and completed her plan. It took roughly nine months longer than it needed to.

Had we been supporting the attorney during the divorce, the assets would have transferred on time and she would have kept those returns. We could also have flagged how the agreement's language was going to cause exactly this problem.

Case 2: An attorney who was not interested in collaborating

The attorney representing my client had no interest in our involvement.

The practical result was friction. When we requested documents, the client had to go back to her attorney for copies of things she and her ex had already provided to him, which added communication and therefore legal fees. When we found information missing, she asked him about it and did not get much of a response.

Afterward, building her post-divorce plan and transferring assets, we found inconsistencies between the final agreement and the information we had been given earlier. Because of the dates that ended up in the final agreement, our client received tens of thousands of dollars less than she would otherwise have been entitled to.

That has put real financial strain on her, and it was avoidable. The dates were not a legal error. They were a financial consequence nobody modelled.

Case 3: The attorney brought us in at the start

Sometimes an attorney engages us directly and we work the case from the beginning.

Starting early meant the financial documents were in order and the affidavits actually reflected the current position. We ran a scenario analysis with the attorney showing why what the client believed he wanted was not in his interest. We identified and documented a separate property claim that helped protect his pre-marital assets. We reviewed proposals together before they went to opposing counsel.

The financial terms were documented clearly in the final agreement, and the post-divorce transition was straightforward. That is what it looks like when the process works.

What collaboration actually means here

Attorneys and clients often hire us for a specific, self-contained analysis. A passive growth calculation to establish what a pre-marital retirement balance is worth today, for instance. Useful, but that is a task, not collaboration.

Collaboration looks like working through a scenario analysis together to establish what actually serves the client financially. Discussing which analysis would most strengthen your case. Going through the financial documentation together to identify what is missing and why it matters.

Five reasons we work this way

Clarity on the financial trade-offs

Depending on the situation there can be a great many moving parts: liquidity needs, tax treatment, carrying costs, returns, interest rates on liabilities. We model them with the client's stated goals as the reference point, so the options presented are real rather than theoretical.

Less client frustration around documents

When we are working with you, financial information is shared once rather than assembled twice. If a client needs help completing financial affidavits, we walk them through gathering the information and preparing the forms.

Financial risks that are easy to miss

Clients frequently come to us after the decree for ongoing planning, and we regularly find risks that were never contemplated in the settlement. Most of those would have been visible before signing if someone had been looking for them.

Cleaner communication

Our clients have legal questions. We provide educational resources but we are not attorneys and do not give legal advice. When we encourage a client to raise something with their attorney, sometimes they do not ask, and sometimes the question arrives in a form nobody can act on.

Working together, we can help clients articulate the question clearly and follow up where more information is needed. Clients in the middle of a divorce are also frequently overwhelmed, and often need to hear something more than once before it lands. A team giving a consistent message helps considerably.

A smoother post-divorce transition

The recurring problem after a decree is agreement language that makes dividing assets harder than it needs to be. Drafted with the transfer mechanics in mind, that friction largely disappears. Our after-divorce checklist covers what clients face at that stage.

What we handle

Services we provide when working with attorneys:

• Gathering financial documents
• Reviewing documents to identify what is missing
• Net worth statements
• Cash flow statements
• Income available for support calculations
• Marital standard of living and lifestyle analysis
• Income needed from support to maintain the marital standard of living
• Scenario reports illustrating options for dividing assets and liabilities, with the consequences of each
• Review of proposals to identify financial risk
• Marital versus separate property analysis
• Lump-sum spousal support buy-out analysis
• Briefings on tax law changes and how they affect settlement agreements

Frequently asked questions

At what point in a case should a CDFA be brought in?

As early as practical. Most of the value is in shaping the analysis and the agreement language before terms are settled. Bringing us in after the decree usually means fixing something rather than preventing it.

Does the client or the attorney engage the CDFA?

Either works. Attorneys engage us directly on some cases, and on others the client retains us and we work alongside their counsel.

Does a CDFA give legal advice?

No. We analyse the financial consequences of the options. The legal advice stays with you, and we are careful about that line.

Is this only for high-net-worth cases?

No. Complexity matters more than size. A modest estate with a pension, a small business, or a house someone wants to keep can raise harder questions than a larger but simpler one.

Can you work as a neutral rather than for one side?

Yes. We serve as financial neutral in collaborative cases and in mediation, and as a one-sided analyst in litigated matters.

Do you work outside Ohio?

We work with clients and professionals virtually. Financial analysis is not jurisdiction-bound in the way legal advice is, though we will always ask about the rules that apply in your state.

The reason underneath all of it

No one professional is an expert in everything. We track the tax law so the attorneys we work with do not have to. You look at the case through a legal lens and we look at it through a financial one, and the client gets both.

If you are an attorney who shares that view, I would like to hear from you. Get in touch or read more about our divorce financial planning and analysis services.

Client details in the cases above have been anonymised. Intentional Divorce Solutions provides divorce financial planning, mediation, and coaching. We are not a law firm and we do not provide legal advice.

Last reviewed: August 2026