Matrimonial & Family Law Services

What is a matrimonial vocational assessment?

A matrimonial vocational assessment is a vocational expert's evaluation of a spouse's employability and earning capacity, prepared for a divorce, alimony, child support or equitable distribution proceeding. It answers what the spouse could earn in the labor market where the spouse lives, from the spouse's education, training, work history, skills and any documented medical restriction, and it puts an occupation list and a wage figure in front of the court in place of the two accounts the parties give of each other. The assessment is a vocational opinion, not a legal one: it documents capacity and the evidence behind it, and it leaves the support calculation, the imputation decision and the figure attached to it to the court under the family-law framework of the forum, which counsel confirms.

KWVRS prepares the assessment as a vocational evaluation applied to a prospective question. The tools are the ones an injury case uses, a coded work history, a transferable skills analysis against the occupational classification systems, and published wage and unemployment data for the spouse's area, but the question is what the spouse can earn from today forward rather than what an injury removed. That difference shapes the records requested, the weight given to time away from work and the way the labor market is tested.

The five situations that call for one

Five fact patterns account for most matrimonial engagements. Each raises a different vocational question, and the assessment is scoped to the question rather than to a standard template, so the records requested and the analysis performed differ from one to the next.

Imputed earning capacity for either party

Imputation is a decision the court makes: whether to treat a spouse as earning a figure the spouse does not earn, and what that figure is. The assessment supplies the evidence that decision rests on and stops there. What it supplies is specific: the occupations a spouse's profile supports, named by their classification codes; the wage each pays in the spouse's area, from the Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics program, stated as a range from entry to median rather than a single number; the unemployment rate for the area as the measure of whether the work can be had; and, where the file supports it, a timeline from today to the wage the report identifies.

The same evidence serves either party. Counsel for the spouse who would pay support may retain the assessment to show what the other spouse could earn; counsel for the spouse who would receive support may retain it to show that the capacity claimed against a client is not there, or to establish a client's own capacity before the other side characterizes it. Because the analysis rests on the file and the published data rather than on the retaining side, the report can conclude that current earnings already reflect capacity whichever party retained it, and it says so when that is the finding.

The evaluation in a family-law case

Three things distinguish a family-law engagement from an injury case. The first is the calendar: the report date is fixed against the case management schedule and the hearing when the engagement is scoped, and a supplemental opinion is planned for when financial records are still being produced. The second is access: the spouse assessed is often the opposing party, so the interview is arranged through counsel and may be declined, and a records-only assessment then states what it could verify and what it could not. The third is the record itself: income tax returns, pay records and, for a self-employed spouse, the business records that show what the spouse drew from the business. The vocational expert reads those records for earning history and skills; valuing the business or tracing its income is a forensic accountant's work, and the two opinions are kept apart.

Where the assignment covers both spouses, each receives a separate analysis with its own records, its own labor market and its own conclusion, presented in one report or two as counsel prefers. Attorneys confirm the governing rule for their case; the assessment is written to be disclosed and examined under whichever framework the forum applies.

How a matrimonial engagement proceeds

The engagement opens with a conflict check and a written agreement that fixes scope, the retainer and the report date, and it states which spouse is assessed and which of the questions above is asked, because that decides the records requested and whether an interview is scheduled. The six steps below run from that agreement to testimony; the matrimonial process page sets out each step in full.

Typical timeline

A matrimonial assessment is typically 30 to 60 days from receipt of complete records, and in a family matter the report date is set against the case management schedule when the engagement is scoped, so the hearing fixes the deadline rather than the other way round. Each phase and what moves it is on the matrimonial timeline page.

What a matrimonial engagement costs

What moves the cost of a matrimonial assessment is the scope counsel sets: one spouse or both, employability alone or earning capacity too, and whether the matter reaches a hearing at which the expert testifies. Fees are hourly against a retainer, and an estimate for the scope requested comes before any work begins. The matrimonial cost page sets out the drivers and the billing terms.

Who retains a matrimonial vocational assessment

KWVRS is retained by counsel for either spouse, and the assessment may be of either spouse, including the retaining attorney's own client when counsel wants the capacity question answered before the other side raises it. The engagement comes through counsel, and the expert is neutral as between the parties: the same records, the same classification systems and the same wage series produce the opinion whichever side sends the file, and the opinion is stated the same way whether it helps or hurts the party who asked for it. Because a family matter runs through counsel, the engagement letter, the retainer and the report all run through counsel as well.

Deliverables

The written report is the primary deliverable: the spouse's vocational profile, the occupations it supports with their codes, the wage range and the availability evidence for each, the timeline to full capacity where re-entry or retraining is involved, and the basis for every opinion, organized so that it can be disclosed in the family court and examined by the other side. Where the assignment covers both spouses, the report carries two parallel analyses. A review of an opposing vocational report is a separate written critique, scoped when that report is served. Deposition and hearing testimony rests on the report and is given by the expert who wrote it. A supplemental opinion follows when financial or employment records produced after the report change an input.

Rebutting an opposing evaluation

When the other spouse serves a vocational report, KWVRS is retained to review it, and the review is scoped to that report rather than to a fresh evaluation unless counsel wants both. The critique reads the served report against its own file: whether the occupations it names match the spouse's actual coded history, whether its wage figures come from the right area and the right occupation, whether it showed openings or assumed them, and whether the restrictions it applied came from the medical record or from the spouse's account. Where both experts have reported, the critique sets the two occupation lists and the two wage sources side by side so the court can see where the analyses diverge and why. It is delivered as its own report, and the reviewing expert testifies on it at the hearing when counsel asks.