The published guidance on Three Must-Dos runs from too-general marketing summaries to too-specific technical papers, with very little in between. This piece aims for the middle: enough specificity to be useful, enough breadth to be applicable.
This is for guardians ad litem who are tired of generic ‘develop your practice’ advice and want specifics about Three Must-Dos specifically.
For guardians ad litem, Three Must-Dos affects the child’s best interests in ways that need to be surfaced for the court. The GAL’s role is to evaluate the impact on the child and articulate findings in a way the court can use, not to make decisions about the underlying Three Must-Dos questions. Effective GAL reports keep this distinction clear.
The first meeting
The right intake length for a Three Must-Dos matter is usually 60 to 90 minutes, conducted in person or by video. Shorter intakes miss the depth required for the engagement to be properly scoped; longer intakes overwhelm the client. Many practitioners follow up the intake conversation with a written summary the client confirms before the engagement letter is sent.
A useful intake habit: ask the client to articulate, in their own words, what they’re hoping the engagement will produce. The answer reveals where the client’s expectations align with what Three Must-Dos engagements actually deliver and where they don’t. Closing the gap before the engagement starts saves significant friction during the matter.
The analytical work itself
Analytical work during the middle phase often produces interim findings that affect the engagement scope. A finding the client didn’t anticipate may open new questions; a finding consistent with expectations may close lines of inquiry. The engagement letter should anticipate these scope adjustments and provide a path for handling them without requiring full re-papering. For deeper reference, see National Center for State Courts.
The pacing of the middle phase depends heavily on third-party responsiveness. Some Three Must-Dos engagements can complete the middle phase in 30 days; others stretch to four months because a critical document custodian is slow to respond. Practitioners who actively chase third-party documents — rather than waiting for them — keep matters moving meaningfully faster than passive practitioners.
The deliverable
Most Three Must-Dos deliverables follow a consistent format that practitioners refine over multiple matters. An executive summary at the top. Background and scope. Methodology. Findings. Conclusions and recommendations. Appendices with supporting documentation. Practitioners who maintain a template they refine engagement by engagement produce stronger deliverables faster than those who reinvent the format each time.
The deliverable for a Three Must-Dos engagement is the work product everyone will reference for years afterward. It needs to be defensible (your analysis can withstand scrutiny), readable (the client and any non-specialist can understand it), and complete (it addresses what the engagement was scoped to address). The deliverable usually takes 20-40% of the engagement hours; underestimating this consistently produces matters that run over time.
How specific situations change the standard pattern
Matters with unsophisticated clients require more explanation, slower pacing, and more deliverable walk-through time than matters with sophisticated clients. Practitioners who run the same engagement structure regardless of client sophistication produce uneven outcomes; calibrating to the client is part of professional judgment.
High-conflict matters require different communication and documentation discipline than cooperative ones. In high-conflict Three Must-Dos engagements, every communication may eventually be reviewed by opposing counsel or a judge; the practitioner needs to write as if the matter will be litigated, even when it won’t be.
The honest summary of Three Must-Dos for guardians ad litem: it rewards depth, it punishes shortcuts, and it compounds across years for practitioners willing to invest in the long arc.
How VennBoard fits in
If you’re building a focus on Three Must-Dos, 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.
For guardians ad litem ready to see how VennBoard supports Three Must-Dos engagements, visit VennBoard.com.
Further reading
National Center for State Courts
IRS Publication 504 (Divorced or Separated Individuals)