Avoid the Shiny Object Syndrome 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 therapists who are tired of generic ‘develop your practice’ advice and want specifics about Avoid the Shiny Object Syndrome specifically.
For therapists working with family-law-adjacent clients, Avoid the Shiny Object Syndrome shows up in the emotional and relational consequences of practical decisions. The therapist’s role isn’t to advise on Avoid the Shiny Object Syndrome substantively but to help the client navigate the decision-making process and the emotional weight of the outcome. Practitioners who clearly maintain this scope produce more effective therapy than those who drift toward advisory roles.
Get the engagement letter right
Scoping is the single highest-leverage moment in a Avoid the Shiny Object Syndrome engagement. Practitioners who treat the engagement letter as paperwork rather than as the most important conversation of the matter end up either doing more work than they’re paid for or producing deliverables their clients didn’t want. A scoping conversation that takes an hour upfront saves dozens of hours later.
For Avoid the Shiny Object Syndrome matters, define the deliverable at scoping. Will you produce a written report? A memorandum? An oral presentation to the case team? A draft document for negotiation? The same matter with a different deliverable is functionally a different engagement; pretending the deliverable will ‘become clear as we go’ produces worse outcomes than naming it upfront.
The records that matter
Document every conversation with the client in writing. Either a short summary email after the call or a contemporaneous note in the case file. Avoid the Shiny Object Syndrome matters involve too many small decisions across too long a timeline to keep in your head, and the client will not remember the conversation the same way you do six months later.
A good Avoid the Shiny Object Syndrome case file separates the engagement-management documents (engagement letter, scoping notes, communication log, billing records) from the case-analytical documents (records received, analyses, drafts, deliverables). Keeping these distinct reduces the cognitive overhead of finding what you need and makes year-over-year improvements to your templates easier to extract.
Working with co-professionals
Strong relationships with the family-law attorneys in your market are the single most important asset for ongoing Avoid the Shiny Object Syndrome flow. Most matters come through these relationships. Practitioners who reliably produce good work for the attorneys they coordinate with get repeated referrals; those who produce work that creates more problems for the attorney lose the referrals quickly. For deeper reference, see APA Ethical Principles.
The protocol for coordination matters. Some matters require frequent multi-professional calls; others require occasional written updates; others require near-silence between the therapist and other professionals on the case. Set the protocol at scoping with the client and the other professionals so nobody is confused about who’s expected to do what.
Ongoing learning that compounds
Conference attendance compounds over years. Practitioners who attend the same family-law conference annually develop both substantive depth (the sessions accumulate) and relational depth (the same colleagues show up every year). The first year produces little; the fifth year is where the network and the knowledge become genuine assets.
Avoid the Shiny Object Syndrome evolves continuously. Case law shifts. Tax and regulatory changes affect the underlying analysis. Software and methodologies improve. Practitioners who built their depth five years ago and haven’t refreshed since end up exposed when a current case turns on a recent development. The minimum maintenance is annual: a CLE specific to Avoid the Shiny Object Syndrome, a refresh of the major statutes and regulations, and a check of the leading recent case decisions.
How the closing affects the next referral
How a Avoid the Shiny Object Syndrome engagement closes affects the next several referrals more than how it opens. Practitioners who send a clean closing letter — recapping what was delivered, confirming any open items the client should know about, formally concluding the engagement — produce stronger ongoing relationships with both clients and referral sources than those who let engagements trail off ambiguously.
If the engagement produced a written deliverable that the client will share with attorneys, courts, or other professionals, make sure the closing version is clearly marked as final and dated. Drafts have a way of escaping into the broader case file; an unambiguously labeled final version eliminates the most common source of post-engagement confusion.
None of this is shortcut work. The practitioners who own Avoid the Shiny Object Syndrome in their markets earned their position the slow way — consistent attendance at the same conferences, careful case work compounding over years, relationships built deliberately.
How VennBoard fits in
If you’re building a focus on Avoid the Shiny Object Syndrome, 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.
Practitioners interested in seeing VennBoard’s case-management infrastructure for Avoid the Shiny Object Syndrome work can learn more at VennBoard.com.