How CDFAs Should Approach First Things First

First Things First sits in the strange space between technique and judgment. A junior attorney with good technique and no judgment will miss it; a senior attorney with great judgment and rusty technique will get half of it right. The best practitioners keep both sharp.

Aimed at divorce financial coaches at any career stage who have started seeing referrals in First Things First and want to know what the work actually looks like once you commit to it.

Divorce financial coaches handling First Things First 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.

The intake conversation

The right intake length for a First Things First 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 First Things First engagements actually deliver and where they don’t. Closing the gap before the engagement starts saves significant friction during the matter.

The body of the engagement

The middle phase of a First Things First engagement is mostly about data gathering, analysis, and coordination. The data gathering involves requesting documents from the client and (often) from third parties through subpoenas or formal requests. The analysis involves working through what the documents reveal. The coordination involves keeping the attorney and other co-professionals informed.

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.

How the matter ends

Most First Things First 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. For deeper reference, see National Center for State Courts.

Walk the client through the deliverable before they take it to the attorney or court. The presentation matters; the same report explained well lands differently than the same report dropped over email without context. The walk-through is also where the client’s last questions surface; addressing them in real time prevents follow-up cycles weeks later.

When the standard doesn’t apply

High-conflict matters require different communication and documentation discipline than cooperative ones. In high-conflict First Things First 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.

Pro bono or reduced-fee First Things First engagements present a specific risk: the temptation to deliver less rigorous work than the practitioner would for a paying client. Pro bono cases that go wrong because of insufficient analytical rigor damage practitioner reputation more than paying cases that go wrong, because the quality gap is visible.

Practitioners who want to make First Things First a meaningful part of their work should commit to the long timeline. The first year produces little visible return. The third year shifts. By year five, the work and the referrals look noticeably different.

How VennBoard fits in

If you’re building a focus on First Things First, 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 divorce financial coaches ready to see how VennBoard supports First Things First engagements, visit VennBoard.com.