Few areas in family-law practice differentiate practitioners as cleanly as First Things First. The ones who do it well build referral relationships that survive economic cycles; the ones who do it casually pick up the occasional case and never quite know why some clients fit and others don’t.
Aimed at guardians ad litem 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.
GAL work on First Things First usually requires interviews with the parents, the child (age-appropriate), the school, and any treating providers. The triangulation across sources produces findings that any single source could not. GALs who rely primarily on parent interviews produce work that doesn’t survive vigorous cross-examination.
The work itself, day to day
A typical First Things First matter for a working guardian ad litem runs three to eight months end to end. The intake is heavy. The middle is mostly waiting on records, opposing-side responses, or third-party documents. The closing is dense — preparing the deliverable, walking through it with the client, defending it if there’s a hearing. The cash flow timing matters: you’ll do a lot of work before you bill significant amounts.
There’s a quiet asymmetry in First Things First work: the bad engagements take twice as much time as the good ones and pay the same. Practitioners who can identify the bad ones at intake — and either reshape them with the client or refer them out — make significantly better hourly economics than those who accept everything that comes through the door. For deeper reference, see IRS Publication 504 (Divorced or Separated Individuals).
How clients find you
If you’re starting from zero and want First Things First cases, three moves matter most: attend the state bar’s annual family-law section meeting (the same one, three years in a row), get on a section committee that produces written work, and write something publishable on First Things First in your state bar journal or a comparable regional publication. None of this is fast. All of it compounds.
A specific tactic that consistently produces First Things First referrals: pick three or four professionals in adjacent fields (a family-law attorney, a financial advisor with divorcing clients, a therapist who works with high-conflict families) and have one substantive conversation per quarter with each. Not coffee. A real conversation about a case they’re stuck on, even if you’re not getting paid for it. Practitioners report this produces more high-quality referrals than any other single tactic.
Pricing and engagement structure
Pricing for First Things First engagements is more variable than most practitioners realize at first. The same matter can reasonably be billed hourly, on a flat-fee basis with a defined scope, or as a hybrid (flat for the initial diagnostic, hourly for the deeper work that may or may not materialize). The choice matters because it shapes how the engagement runs — flat-fee engagements force tight scoping; hourly engagements absorb scope creep but feel less predictable to clients.
Flat-fee engagements for First Things First require honest scoping and disciplined no-saying. The practitioners who succeed with flat fees have learned to identify scope creep in real time and convert it to additional engagement letters rather than absorbing the work silently.
Patterns that consistently fail
The ‘I’ll figure it out as I go’ approach to ethics in First Things First catches practitioners who didn’t fully think through the conflict-of-interest, scope, and confidentiality implications of the area. Read your state ethics opinions on the relevant topics before your first case, not during your third one.
Failing to close engagements properly is a hidden cost. When the matter ends, send a closing letter that confirms what was delivered, what wasn’t in scope, and that the engagement is concluded. Practitioners who skip this step end up doing post-engagement work for free or finding former clients calling years later with questions they no longer owe answers to.
What to do next
Start by sitting through a CLE specifically on First Things First run by a practitioner who actually does the work — not a marketing-flavored survey. Most state bars have one within the next year. Take notes on what surprised you. The gaps between what you thought you knew and what the speaker assumes everyone knows are your roadmap for the next six months.
Block time on your calendar for the analytical work First Things First requires. Trying to fit it between general-practice matters produces shallow work. A morning per week, protected from other matters, is enough for most practitioners to start building real depth.
If you’re considering First Things First 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
Practitioners who handle First Things First 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 guardian ad litem building a focus on First Things First and looking for the operational backbone, visit VennBoard.com to see how it fits into your practice.
Further reading
National Center for State Courts
ABA Family Law Section resources