New Jersey Matrimonial Vocational Expert Services

Family matters in New Jersey are heard in the Superior Court of New Jersey, Chancery Division, Family Part, which sits in each county vicinage; the New Jersey state page lists the vicinages and their courthouses. When a spouse's earning capacity is in dispute, the question before the Family Part is what that spouse is able to earn rather than what the spouse earns today. A matrimonial vocational assessment supplies that evidence. It evaluates the employability and earning potential of a spouse for alimony and equitable distribution determinations: employability asks whether the spouse can obtain and hold work with his or her education, training, work history and any medical restriction, and earning potential asks what that work pays. The assessment states an earning capacity the court can weigh when a spouse is not working, is working below the level of his or her background, or is planning a return to the workforce.

The engagement begins with a conflict check that confirms the scope and clarifies whether one spouse or both are assessed, which determines the records to be gathered and the interviews to be scheduled. The records reviewed are the education, employment and financial records that bear on vocational capacity: school and training transcripts, certifications, work history and earnings records, and any medical documentation of a restriction on work. Where appropriate the spouse is interviewed and standardized testing is administered to document skills, aptitudes and work history. A labor market survey and an earning capacity analysis follow for the relevant geographic area, and the written report documents the methodology and the opinions in a form suitable for alimony and equitable distribution determinations. Deposition and trial testimony follow the court's schedule.

An imputed earning capacity has to rest on data the court can examine. The assessment identifies the occupations open to the spouse's education, training and work history, then reports what those occupations pay in the relevant area from the wages the Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics program publishes, with the Local Area Unemployment Statistics unemployment rate for the same area as the measure of whether the work is realistically available. Twelve New Jersey city pages on this site carry a metropolitan-area record, Hackensack, Newark and Jersey City among them, and each shows the figures of its own area while the state's other city pages show statewide figures; the report itself applies the figures of the area in which the spouse lives and works, and where a spouse's work history spans another labor market it states which area's figures it applied and why. The report also distinguishes the wages of the occupation the spouse held from the wages of the occupations the spouse could hold, so that the court sees both figures and the basis for each.

The methodology does not change with the retaining party. KWVRS accepts matrimonial engagements from either spouse's counsel, the evaluation may be of either spouse, and the opinion is neutral whichever party retains it. The records reviewed, the occupational classification systems applied and the published wage data cited are the same in every assignment, so that an opposing expert can reproduce the analysis and challenge it on its merits, and the opinion may be that the spouse's earning capacity is at or below current earnings. The report is organized to the disclosure requirements of the Family Part, and attorneys confirm the rule that governs their case. KWVRS prepares New Jersey matrimonial assessments from its Hackensack headquarters.