Identify Your Target is one of those areas where the practitioners who actually do the work are usually too busy to write about it, and the ones who write about it tend to do less of it. This piece tries to split the difference.
The audience here is family-law attorneys who want a practitioner-level read on Identify Your Target — what works, what fails, and where the time and money tend to go.
The family-law attorney’s relationship to Identify Your Target differs from the consultant’s. The attorney is responsible for the legal strategy that incorporates Identify Your Target findings; the consultant is responsible for the underlying analysis. Practitioners who clearly demarcate these roles in their engagement letters — even when handling both — produce cleaner work product and reduce liability exposure.
What clients ask first about Identify Your Target
The second most common question is about cost. family-law attorneys who answer with a single number for Identify Your Target matters usually end up unhappy when the matter expands; practitioners who answer with a tiered structure (the diagnostic phase, the analytical phase, the closing phase, each with its own cost range and triggers for moving to the next) build trust and protect their economics.
The single most common question clients ask in their first Identify Your Target call is some version of ‘how long will this take?’ The honest answer is usually between three and eight months — but with hard variability based on the responsiveness of opposing parties, third-party document custodians, and (in litigated matters) the court calendar. Practitioners who give clients a range with specific factors that could lengthen or shorten it produce more realistic expectations than those who quote a single number.
The mistakes that recur
Practitioners often fail to recognize when a Identify Your Target matter has crossed from analytical work into advocacy or therapy. The work has clean boundaries — analytical work is appropriate; advocacy or therapy beyond your role is not. Recognizing the boundary and referring out when appropriate is one of the markers of senior practice.
Many family-law attorneys undervalue their work in Identify Your Target matters because they’re comparing their hours to their general practice rather than to other specialists in the area. The right comparison is to others doing the same work, not to your past general practice. Practitioners who recalibrate their pricing against the right peer group price their work appropriately.
How Identify Your Target has changed in recent years
Professional standards in Identify Your Target have been evolving across the major credentialing organizations. The credentials themselves matter less than they used to (because client research finds them) but the underlying curricula have improved. Practitioners going through current credential programs emerge with better-built frameworks than those who credentialed a decade ago.
Working remotely with co-professionals on Identify Your Target matters has become routine since 2020. Most family-law attorneys now run substantial portions of their engagements through video conferences with clients in other cities, secure document exchanges, and coordinated calls across multiple professionals. The infrastructure for distributed case management has matured. For deeper reference, see National Center for State Courts.
A framework for deciding
Considering Identify Your Target as a focus area is a five-year decision, not a one-year decision. Practitioners who commit to a year and then evaluate usually conclude the area isn’t producing returns — because year one almost never does. The decision is really about whether you’re willing to invest the next five years.
If the answer is ‘yes, I want to commit to Identify Your Target as a focus area,’ the first six months should be heavy on relationship-building, infrastructure investment, and one or two carefully-handled cases. Build the engagement-letter template. Attend the family-law section meeting. Read the foundational texts. The case flow follows the foundation, not the other way around.
If you’re considering Identify Your Target as a focus area and you want one concrete commitment to make: pick the upcoming family-law conference closest to you and commit to attending every year for the next five years.
How VennBoard fits in
If you’re building a focus on Identify Your Target, the case-management infrastructure matters more than most practitioners think going in. VennBoard is built specifically for family-law-adjacent practitioners and handles the document organization, the multi-party coordination, and the engagement-management that makes long-arc matters manageable.
If you’re a family law attorney building a focus on Identify Your Target and looking for the operational backbone, visit VennBoard.com to see how it fits into your practice.
Further reading
IRS Publication 504 (Divorced or Separated Individuals)
National Center for State Courts