10 Ways Financial Advisers Add Value in Divorce Cases

The following article appeared in the February 2026 edition of Maryland Family Law Advocate newsletter, a publication of the Family Law Section of the Maryland State Bar Association.

By John S. Dame, Esq., CDFA

1. Establish a Financial Road Map Early and Add Analytical Depth to the Team

Has a client ever walked through your door having a limited understanding of their financial picture? When a financial adviser is involved early in a case, we can assemble a starter road map of the parties’ financial circumstances. This includes their income sources, expense history, debt obligations, investment accounts, employer compensation arrangements, real estate, closely held businesses, private funds, and tax positions.

An initial understanding of the parties’ finances can be developed without a massive round of discovery. Two documents provide a lot of information. Specifically, the parties’ operating checking account and their tax return. Most non-financial spouses have, at the bare minimum, access to these documents at the outset.

This preliminary work allows counsel to surface strategic questions at the outset of the case. Which documents are essential to request immediately? Which assets are likely to become leverage points or obstacles in negotiation? Did we find signs of assets completely unknown to the non-financial spouse? Are there any signs of dissipation? Is there a need to request injunctive relief? Where do timing issues exist, such as vesting schedules, deferred payouts, or liquidity events? And perhaps most importantly, does my client understand their financial circumstances adequately enough to make decisions about their next steps?

2. Support Client Decision-Making Within the Framework of the Law

Attorneys should conduct diligence before involving a financial adviser in a case. This may include understanding the adviser’s experience with divorce cases, their familiarity with the governing law, and their approach to working within the attorney’s strategy. Where a client already has an adviser, counsel may also choose to ask targeted questions or establish clear rules of the road regarding the adviser’s role, the scope of financial discussions, and how projections or scenarios are presented to the client. Doing so helps ensure that financial input supports the legal framework of the case rather than unintentionally working at cross purposes.  Checking in regularly with the adviser is critical to ensure they are moving the case forward and not derailing or slowing down the process due to a lack of knowledge about the law.

When a financial adviser understands both the law and their role within a divorce matter, they can be a material asset. The adviser can help clients evaluate potential outcomes, understand tradeoffs, and process financial risk without straying beyond what is legally achievable in the case.

This requires discipline. Financial analysis must sit within the framework of the law, not apart from it. An adviser who understands equitable distribution, spousal support factors, and the limits of what courts will order can help clients assess options realistically rather than anchoring to outcomes that are not supported by legal precedent or the facts of the case.

In practice, this means the adviser reinforces attorney guidance rather than undermining it. The adviser can model scenarios, explain consequences, and help the client understand why certain outcomes are unlikely or impractical, in a factual and ethical way, all without giving legal advice or creating false expectations. This often allows attorneys to focus on advocacy while knowing that financial discussions with the client are occurring in alignment with the legal strategy.

3. Reduce Financial Asymmetry and Prevent Strategic Manipulation

In many divorce matters, the greatest imbalance is not income or net worth, but knowledge. The financially sophisticated spouse often understands the structure, risks, and mechanics of the marital assets in ways the other spouse does not. That imbalance creates opportunities for manipulation, both during the divorce and after judgment. This imbalance may exist even when both parties are financially contributing to the household, and even when there are not any nefarious intentions.

A financial adviser helps level the playing field by reinforcing concepts and enhancing a client’s knowledge, translating complexity into digestible terms and by identifying where financial sophistication can be used strategically. This may include selective disclosure of information, minimizing the perceived value of certain assets, overstating liquidity constraints, understating tax impacts, or shaping narratives around risk that are not supported by reality.  

This dynamic is particularly acute with brokerage accounts, complex compensation, private investments, and closely held businesses, where plan documents, timing rules, and tax treatment materially affect value.

Introducing a sophisticated financial adviser who has the expertise required during the divorce creates a counterweight to this imbalance. The adviser becomes a consistent reference point for the non-financial spouse, reinforcing the attorney’s advice and reducing reliance on the opposing party’s representations. This protection often extends into the post-judgment period, where the financially sophisticated spouse may otherwise continue to influence outcomes through superior knowledge or access. It levels the playing field.

4. Distinguish Between Realized Value and Contingent Value

Have you ever had a client that struggles to comprehend the difference between an asset presently owned and an asset that may be realized later? We often see clients treat the contingent value of an asset as equivalent to realized value of an asset. An adviser would separate these categories in any analysis and hold a conversation with the client to account for risk presented, which creates space for the client and the attorney to make better strategic decisions.

Realized value reflects what the marital estate is worth today and can be divided with relative certainty. Contingent value reflects assets whose realization depends on future events, such as continued employment, company performance, or liquidity events.

Equity compensation, deferred compensation, private investments, and business interests often carry performance risk, forfeiture risk, and timing risk. Treating these assets as guaranteed distorts both asset division and support calculations.

By mapping these risks, an adviser assists counsel to evaluate how uncertainty is allocated between the parties and whether settlement terms appropriately compensate the non-employee spouse for assuming certain risks. Upon separating value into the real and contingent categories, the next step is understanding how these concepts impact case strategy.

5. Analyze Complex Assets With Attention to Risk, Not Just Stated Value

Complex compensation and investment structures are common in divorce cases. Restricted stock, performance-based equity, deferred compensation, private funds, and closely held businesses each introduce unique forms of risk.  

We are seeing a reduced number of traditional defined benefit pensions, and a rise in more convoluted compensation packages. An adviser’s analysis focuses on real and contingent value; in other words, how and when is value realized? This requires a comprehensive review of plan documents, vesting calendars, forfeiture provisions, transfer restrictions, employer separation rules, and payout mechanics. This is a critical risk assessment for the client, both in understanding negotiation dynamics and their potential circumstances post-judgment. Misunderstanding these assets can lead to the client taking on an inordinate amount of risk because of a failure to understand the spectra of possible outcomes during the negotiation.

Private equity, venture capital, and other alternative investments increasingly appear in portfolios below traditional high-net-worth thresholds. These assets often involve capital calls, limited liquidity and lockups, fee layering, and long distribution timelines. It is crucial for attorneys to have a basic understanding of these assets and their complicated attributes because they must be able to evaluate the risk they present. A financial professional can work with an attorney to sort through these complex assets and see how they fit within the case.

6. Reconstruct Historical Lifestyle and Establish a Forward-Looking Baseline

Many clients struggle to articulate their spending accurately and the Financial Statement can cause conflict between attorneys and their clients for this reason. Advisers regularly navigate the behavioral dynamics associated with spending discussions. It is a central part of our day-to-day practice with clients. We know that our clients often experience shame when attesting to their spending behavior, which leads them to provide us with inaccurate representations and ultimately harm their case. We know how to manage for these issues, and it is largely with documents, the facts, and our knowledge of the parameters of the law. A financial professional can reconstruct historical spending using objective records to create a defensible baseline for analysis.

7. Evaluate Settlement Terms Based on the Client’s Likelihood of Success  

The analysis of proposed settlement terms marks one of the most consequential moments in a divorce case, particularly for a non-financial spouse.  While attorneys can attempt to employ a financial rule of thumb to determine whether settlement terms are adequate, this is likely not the best option available. To illustrate, the attorney may analyze whether the client taking 3-4% of their investment account each year will allow said client to meet their expenses. While rules of thumb can provide a quick check, they obscure meaningful financial risk because they are back of the envelope and often ignore many important underlying factors that meaningfully skew the outcome for the client.

Meanwhile, a financial professional’s review evaluates settlement terms using assumptions that reflect the client’s unique personal and financial realities and the expected macroeconomic environment. This analysis includes a detailed spending breakdown, the types of assets involved, a proposed investment strategy, performance assumptions, inflation risk, concentration risk, and cost basis and tax treatment. Small changes in these variables can materially alter the client’s long-term trajectory.

Central to a financial professional’s review of terms is a likelihood-of-success framework. Rather than presenting a single outcome, this approach examines the probability that a proposed settlement will sustain the client over time and compares its chances for success or failure. This allows both attorney and client to develop an understanding of the decision before them and the risks it presents.

Following such an analysis, key questions come to the forefront. What level of spending is sustainable? Does the financial plan remain viable under less favorable market conditions? If the client wants to reject the proposal and litigate, how will attorney and expert fees for the divorce case affect long-term outcomes?  By and through this analysis, a financial professional can provide objective, easy-to-understand data, and reframe negotiation strategy.

This analysis also ensures the client isn’t singularly focused on one problematic component of the settlement terms and can instead view it holistically in the context of their next chapter, post-divorce.  

8. Integrate Economic Conditions Into Legal and Financial Strategy

While macroeconomic analysis is not often a central topic in divorce, it is impactful to the parties’ ability to reach agreement or failure to do so. Factors such as inflation, market volatility, and borrowing costs materially affect the parties’ financial flexibility and long-term likelihood of financial success.

An adviser can work with a client to navigate an increasingly complex financial situation. If interest rates are rising, but the client wishes to refinance to keep the Marital Home, what are some creative options to make that happen? If the market is falling and the client’s confidence is shaken, the adviser can explain the dynamics occurring in publicly traded stocks and the long-term average return. In the event costs are rising at a faster pace than average, an adviser can ensure that those cost adjustments are captured in the client’s Financial Statement and their projections.

As we all know, unlike many civil and criminal matters, divorce cases are living things. The facts do not stop on the day the triggering event occurs, and a financial adviser can help the attorney and the client adapt to the ever-evolving circumstances.

9. Cost Efficiency

Distinct from many forensic accountants and valuation analysts, most financial advisers working in the divorce space wish to create a long-term relationship with the client. In other words, at the conclusion of the divorce, the financial adviser hopes to onboard the client’s assets for investment management. Consequently, a financial adviser is not incentivized to charge a client large amounts of money while working on the divorce case because they intend to manage the client’s assets thereafter.

Some advisers charge nothing for their work during a case, while others may charge a fixed fee or hourly. At a low cost, an adviser can assist with budgets, assets and liabilities statements, and reviews of investment accounts and other assets. Additionally, a financial professional is likely able to complete an initial dissipation analysis of the parties’ assets to account for movements of funds to unknown or problematic destinations. An adviser may also be able to provide you with a review of the parties’ illiquid investments indicating any likelihood of value. If there is no fee, or a limited fee, charged for this work, it is an enormous efficiency for the client in a costly process.

If the case moves outside the negotiation posture, the adviser can then pass on their work to a forensic accountant and/or valuation expert. The analysis completed by the adviser should reduce the workload of the experts, thus lessening their ultimate fees in the case.

For counsel, this alignment reduces friction, improves client engagement, and lowers the risk that unrealistic financial narratives derail negotiations or prolong litigation. When the adviser respects the legal framework and the attorney’s role, they become a stabilizing force in the case rather than a competing voice.

10. Implement Next Chapter Architecture as a Structured Transition Framework

Resolution is only effective if implemented correctly. Poor execution can undermine even well-negotiated agreements.

Rothschild Capital Partners’ Next Chapter Architecture is a framework for implementing life transitions following divorce. It integrates planning judgment, legal structure, and investment execution into a coherent process.

Our work involves asset segregation, tax-aware distribution, portfolio rebalancing, beneficiary updates, QDRO coordination, and continuity planning. Our day-to-day participation in these tasks post-judgment reduces confusion, minimizes post-judgment disputes, and protects the attorney-client relationship.

This is not a checklist or a set of directives. It is a collaborative framework that empowers clients to make informed decisions while reducing risk for counsel. If the client is a non-financial spouse, in many cases, they are in the driver’s seat for their major life decisions, financial and otherwise, for the first time in a long while. Next Chapter Architecture places a structure around the client to ensure that they are not overwhelmed and have the support system necessary to make strong decisions during the post-divorce transition.

This part of the process brings to life the light at the end of the tunnel.  The next chapter of their lives post-divorce can be a chance to restart and find new happiness, meaning, and purpose.  We provide a solid foundation for them to do just that, so that their finances can work for them, and they can close out the divorce process with confidence and gratitude to their attorney.

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Rothschild Capital Partners is available to present at your conference or event on these topics and more. Please reach out via connect@rothcap.com, if you wish to invite us to speak.

For more on our Divorce Wealth Planning practice, click here.