Butts in Seats 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.
This is for divorce financial coaches who are tired of generic ‘develop your practice’ advice and want specifics about Butts in Seats specifically.
Divorce financial coaches handling Butts in Seats need to coordinate with the family-law attorney on the matter. The attorney drives legal strategy; the coach provides financial analysis. Effective coaches identify and respect this boundary — they don’t drift into legal advice — while still providing analysis that supports the legal strategy effectively.
Conventional practice
Standard Butts in Seats practice has become well-defined enough that CLE programs, professional standards bodies, and practitioner texts all describe roughly the same workflow. The substantive details vary by jurisdiction and matter, but the structural pattern is consistent across most practitioners doing the work.
The recognized standard for Butts in Seats engagements involves five identifiable phases: intake, scoping, analytical work, deliverable production, and closing. Most divorce financial coaches who have handled the work for several years would describe their process in these terms, even when they don’t use the same labels.
Where the standard fails
The standard approach also fails when the practitioner doesn’t actually do Butts in Seats regularly. Practitioners handling one matter every two years can’t maintain the working depth that produces good Butts in Seats outcomes. The standard approach assumes the practitioner has internalized it through repetition; when that’s not true, the standard becomes a checklist that produces checklist-quality work. For deeper reference, see Federal Office of Child Support Enforcement.
Practitioners who do Butts in Seats consistently see the same standard failures across years. Matters where the analytical methodology produces technically correct results that don’t fit the specific situation. Matters where the standard intake misses important context. Matters where the standard deliverable format doesn’t serve the actual case need. Recognizing these failure patterns at intake — and adjusting — is one of the markers of mature practice.
Alternative approaches worth considering
Seasoned practitioners also vary the deliverable format based on the matter. Standard memo format for negotiation-track matters. More extensive written report for litigation-track matters. Oral presentation with supporting materials for mediation-track matters. The same underlying analysis, presented in different formats, lands differently in different contexts.
Alternative approaches that work better in specific contexts: tiered engagement structures (separate diagnostic, analytical, and closing engagements with separate fees) for high-uncertainty matters; collaborative engagement structures (multiple divorce financial coaches working as a team) for unusually complex matters; phased engagement structures (initial consultation followed by deferred full engagement) for clients who aren’t yet ready to commit to full scope.
Matching the approach to the specific case
A practical decision framework: standard approach for matters within the typical range; alternative approaches for matters with specific identifiable variations; new structures for matters that don’t fit any prior pattern. Practitioners who can recognize which category they’re in at intake produce better engagements than those who run the same workflow regardless of matter type.
The skill that develops over years isn’t memorizing more approaches — it’s recognizing matter type quickly and selecting the right one. This pattern-recognition can’t be taught directly; it accumulates from handling matters repeatedly and debriefing what worked and what didn’t.
Most practitioners who eventually own Butts in Seats in their market started without a clear plan and built it engagement by engagement. The plan that emerges in retrospect rarely matches the one they would have written at the start.
How VennBoard fits in
Practitioners who handle Butts in Seats repeatedly find that the back-office infrastructure is the difference between a practice that scales and one that absorbs the practitioner. VennBoard provides the structured workspace that lets you focus on the substantive work — the part that actually compounds.
If you’re a cdfa building a focus on Butts in Seats and looking for the operational backbone, visit VennBoard.com to see how it fits into your practice.
Further reading
Federal Office of Child Support Enforcement
IRS Publication 504 (Divorced or Separated Individuals)