Vocational Evaluations in Divorce and Alimony Cases

Support and equitable distribution turn on what each spouse can earn, not only on what each spouse earns today, and that is the question a vocational evaluation answers. Two terms carry the analysis:

• Earning capacity is what a spouse could realistically earn given education, training, work history and any documented health restriction, measured against the occupations and wages of the spouse's labor market (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, n.d.; National Center for O*NET Development, n.d.).
• Imputed income is income a court attributes to a spouse or parent for a support calculation in place of what that person actually earns.

A spouse who left the workforce to raise children or run a household has no current wage but does have a vocational profile: education, training, prior occupations and acquired skills. A spouse alleged to be underemployed may be working below that profile; a spouse alleged to be overemployed may be earning more than the profile would sustain over time. A spouse re-entering the labor market after years away raises the question of how quickly, and at what wage. In each case the figure the court weighs is earning capacity, and the evaluation documents it from the records and the labor market rather than from either spouse's account.

The evaluation answers four questions, and an assignment may ask any of them. Employability: whether the spouse can find and hold work, and in which occupations, given education, training, work history and any restriction the medical records document. Underemployment: whether current earnings sit below what the spouse's profile would support in the local labor market, and whether openings actually exist at the higher figure. Return to work: for a spouse who has been away, how current the skills are, what wage is realistic at re-entry, and how long full capacity would take. Retraining: whether it is needed, what is available, and how long it would run. The method is the one described in What Is a Vocational Evaluation?; what differs is the question. A family-law evaluation projects prospective earning capacity for support purposes, while a personal injury evaluation measures what an injury removed from an existing capacity.

A divorce calls for a vocational evaluation when what a spouse can earn is in dispute. Counsel for either spouse may retain it, and the assignment may cover one spouse or both. The fact patterns that most often call for one:

• A spouse who has been out of the workforce for years and whose capacity to earn is disputed.
• A claim that a spouse is underemployed, or overemployed, relative to education and work history.
• A disputed return-to-work timeline: when a spouse could realistically be working, and at what wage.
• A retraining question: whether a credential or program is needed, and how long it would take.
• A post-judgment change in earning capacity, such as a new restriction or a completed degree.

In each of these the evaluation replaces two competing accounts with one documented analysis, and it reads the same whichever spouse's counsel commissioned it.

The evaluation moves through three stages: counsel scopes it and sends the file, the expert reviews the records and, when the scope calls for it, interviews and tests the spouse, and the expert then writes the report. Scoping settles the question asked and which spouse or spouses are covered, and that choice decides the work that follows. The file is the evaluation's foundation: education and training records, the employment history with its earnings documentation, the financial records that bear on earning history, medical documentation of any restriction the spouse claims, and the court schedule and the case management deadlines the report has to meet. An interview and standardized testing are added when appropriate, when the profile cannot be documented from the records alone.

When there is an interview, the ethics code for certified rehabilitation counselors requires that the spouse be told in writing that the relationship is for an evaluation and that a report of findings may or may not be produced, and it calls for written consent except in the circumstances the code lists (Commission on Rehabilitation Counselor Certification, 2023). The interview, held in person or by video, takes the spouse through education, training and licenses, each job held and the skills it used, and any health limitation the spouse describes. Testing, when used, measures aptitude, achievement and interests, and the expert reads the scores alongside the spouse's schooling and job history rather than on their own. The same code asks the evaluator to seek independent verification of the information an opinion relies on where circumstances reasonably permit, so what the spouse reports is compared with the records (Commission on Rehabilitation Counselor Certification, 2023). The report then sets out the profile, the occupations and wages it supports, and the basis for each opinion. The matrimonial process page lists the steps in order, and How Long Does a Vocational Evaluation Take? shows where the interview falls in the timeline.

The report gives counsel and the court three things they can check: the occupations the spouse's profile realistically supports, evidence that openings exist for them in the relevant area, and the wages those occupations pay, from the Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics program (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, n.d.) and, for earnings by education and area, the American Community Survey (U.S. Census Bureau, n.d.). The same findings bear on child support as well as alimony. For child support, a federal rule published in December 2016 requires that, where a state's guidelines authorize imputation of income, they take into consideration the specific circumstances of the noncustodial parent (and, at the state's discretion, the custodial parent) to the extent known. The factors it lists include employment and earnings history, job skills, educational attainment, literacy, age, health, criminal record and other employment barriers, and record of seeking work, as well as the local job market, the availability of employers willing to hire the parent and the prevailing earnings level in the local community (Administration for Children and Families, 2016). Most of those factors are what a vocational evaluation documents. What the court does with those findings is the court's determination under the family-law framework that governs the forum: whether income is imputed, the figure attached to it, and how that figure enters the support calculation are legal questions, and the report does not predict them. One method serves both sides of the question: the spouse asserting underemployment and the spouse denying it receive the same analysis, an overemployment claim is examined the same way, and the report may conclude that current earnings already match capacity.

When the other spouse discloses a vocational report, a separately scoped review tests five things. The records basis: what was read, what was missing, and whether the conclusions outrun it. The restrictions applied: whether the limits used are the ones the medical records document or an assumption. The occupational analysis: whether the occupations identified match the spouse's actual skills and training when coded against the classification systems (U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration, 1991; National Center for O*NET Development, n.d.). The labor market evidence: whether openings were shown to exist or merely asserted. The wage sources: whether the figures are published data for the right area and occupation. The product is a written critique and, if needed, testimony.

The cost depends on the scope counsel requests, and counsel receives a written fee schedule and an estimate for that scope before any work begins; in a matrimonial matter the report is typically 30 to 60 days from receipt of complete records. The engagement agreement sets the fee and its payment terms, and three things move the cost most: how many issues are disputed, and for how many parties; the size of the records file; and whether the matter reaches deposition or trial. The drivers are on the matrimonial cost page. Because the court schedule and case management deadlines are settled when the engagement is scoped, the report date is fixed against the hearing from the outset; the phases are on the matrimonial timeline page.

A vocational expert answers what a spouse can earn; a forensic accountant brings accounting expertise to litigation and investigative services, the work for which the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) awards its Certified in Financial Forensics (CFF) credential, whose areas include family law services (American Institute of CPAs, n.d.); a custody evaluator addresses parenting arrangements. The three can appear in the same divorce, and each stays inside a discipline. The vocational expert holds a credential such as the Certified Rehabilitation Counselor (Commission on Rehabilitation Counselor Certification, n.d.) or the ABVE Diplomate (American Board of Vocational Experts, n.d.) and does not value a business. Business valuation is a matter the National Association of Forensic Economics counts within forensic economics (National Association of Forensic Economics, n.d.) and the subject of the AICPA's Accredited in Business Valuation (ABV) credential (American Institute of CPAs, n.d.); what a forensic economist and a forensic accountant each cover, and where they overlap, is set out in the forensic economist versus accountant comparison. A custody evaluator has nothing to say about earning capacity. Each opinion is confined to its own field, and none of them decides the legal result.

Kincaid Wolstein Vocational and Rehabilitation Services (KWVRS) accepts matrimonial vocational engagements from either spouse's counsel in every state; counsel confirms the governing standard in the forum, and these pages carry the state framing:

• New Jersey
• New York
• Pennsylvania
• Rhode Island
• Massachusetts, with the Massachusetts alimony guide