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Home > Publications > GP Solo > 2015 > July/August 2015: Family Law > The Best Software and Apps for Family Lawyers
The Best Software and Apps for Family Lawyers Vol. 32 No. 4
By Terri A. Lastovka Terri A. Lastovka, CPA, JD, ASA, is the principal of Valuation & Litigation Consulting, LLC, which focuses on business valuations (including dispute resolution valuations) and litigation consulting. Use of technology in pretty much everything has become a must to remain efficient and profitable. Family law is no exception to this concept. With so many variables to consider, the family law practitioner can benefit from the use of any number of software packages that have become available over the years.
Family law attorneys, accountants, and other divorce professionals nationwide rely on divorce financial software to analyze financial data and tax ramifications in divorce cases. Tax-optimized divorce settlements often produce higher disposal incomes for both parties. Helping clients find a divorce settlement that minimizes tax obligations is not only a matter of professional responsibility but also an economic reality. Divorce software for attorneys calculates settlements more quickly and accurately than generic financial tools can. On the tangible side of your case, you have property division, alimony, and child support—with valuation issues and tax implications. The intangible aspects of parenting time can be equally troubling. The technology that has been produced has become invaluable for court personnel, litigators, mediators, collaborative law professionals (dealing with law, finances, or mental health), and even the parties themselves. The financial programs allow you to enter all the financial information, including assets, liabilities, and income information for both parties. A wide variety of reports can be generated, including “what if” scenarios to assist in negotiating settlements. Tax issues are taken into consideration, including but not limited to income tax, capital gains, dependency exemptions, child tax credits, and self-employment tax. Some programs are provided on CD, and you may get periodic updates throughout the year. Other programs are downloaded and are updated frequently throughout the year. Some of the programs allow your clients to enter the data directly through a portal, which saves you time and them money. This is a great way to get the ball rolling and to get your client on board with how much information needs to be addressed. The software provides a detailed visual of what is really happening to a family’s finances. This is helpful to the client in that it provides a clear way to understand what is happening in the case, both in the short term and over time. In the short term, working with your client and the program you can fine-tune how the assets and debt can be divided to meet everybody’s interests. In the long term, clients can see how the division and the payment or receipt of support will affect their respective financial pictures. The program’s data can be used by a financial specialist for both testimony purposes and to help a client with financial planning. And the data can provide the court with a very clear understanding of the client’s position on the issues. No two software programs are exactly the same, and not all programs are available in all states, so let’s take a look at some of your options.
Technology for Financial Issues
About GPSolo magazine GPSolo magazine is published six times a year (January/February, March/April, May/June, July/August, September/October, and November/December) by the ABA Solo, Small Firm, and General Practice Division. GPSolo is devoted to themes of critical importance to your practice. Each issue contains articles exploring a particular topic of interest to solos, small firms, and general practitioners, as well as articles related to technology and practice management. And to keep you up to date, each issue contains five Best of ABA Sections digests, reprinting the top articles published by other ABA entities that will be of the greatest interest to you. Visit the ABA Solo, Small Firm, and General Practice Division More publications from the Solo, Small Firm, and General Practice Division
Family Law Software (familylawsoftware.com) automatically calculates child support in 21 states: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, Virginia, and Washington. It also calculates child support in Canada. In all these places, if there is a statute relating to alimony/spousal support/maintenance, the software does that as well. The software also prepares the state financial forms in California, Connecticut, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island. This program is a download that is updated frequently for state law and tax law changes. As an example, Family Law Software released its update for the 2013 tax act within two weeks after President Obama signed the bill. You have the ability to prepare cash flow analysis, child support guidelines, alimony buy-out calculations, pension valuation, separate property carve outs, projection reports, tax answer reports, and a variety of “what if” reports for equalization payments, child support, and spousal support. Financial affidavits and child support guideline work sheets appropriate for court filing are at your fingertips. The software developer is very responsive. One day I was getting strange results with the separate property portion of an asset. Tech support found a glitch and had it fixed in a couple hours. With different tabs for lawyers, mediators, and financial professionals, you can get the level of detail you need without getting bogged down with a level of detail that you don’t need.
Subscriptions
Puritas Springs Software (www.puritas-springs.com) has a host of products specific to federal and Ohio law. Specific to family law are document preparation and child support guideline work sheets. Family Law Practitioner’s Apprentice (FLPA2) automates the preparation of your family law documents and pleadings. Mistakes are eliminated by the use of work sheets for basic information. This information is automatically transferred to various family law documents you create, such as the petition for dissolution, separation agreement, and judgment entry. Enter it once, and you don’t have to worry about such easily overlooked errors as “child” versus “children.” You also have global defaults available to populate more than 30 different documents. For example, if you always include certain provisions in your separation agreements, you can create a default file that includes your custom language.
More Information
In addition to FLPA2 for document preparation, Puritas Springs also offers the Ohio Spousal Support Calculator (MA) and Revised Ohio Child Support Guidelines (WROCSG). FLPA2 extracts the information from the other two programs, so you only need to enter data one time and all three programs can use it. The Spousal Support Calculator not only analyzes tax consequences, but lifestyle expenses and ability to pay are considered as well, providing a range of options because one size does not fit all. And the Child Support Guidelines do a very good job incorporating the cash medical support obligation. This is a downloaded product with periodic updates. Floridom (floridom.com) was designed to be a complete family law case management system. Originally released in Florida, it has since expanded to include Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, New York, and South Carolina. It features a series of products: Divorce Power Analyzer (DPA), which performs all the major computational functions needed by professionals handling divorce cases: financial statements, child support calculations, alimony/maintenance calculations, and property division, as well as other major litigation functions related to filing suit, managing witnesses, and managing documents; Parenting Plan & Time Sharing Schedule Generator (PAR), a questionnaire-based program that allows clients or pro se litigants to answer a series of questions and then automatically produces a complete parenting plan to meet court requirements; Domestic Violence Document Generator (DVDG; Florida only), a questionnaire-based program that allows clients or pro se litigants to answer a series of questions and then automatically produces a complete petition for domestic violence, dating violence, sexual violence, or repeat violence as well as the court orders and judgments related to the case; and Contempt/Arrears Analyzer (CAA), a simple tool that computes the arrearage circumstances of people not in compliance with court orders.
Easy Soft (easysoft-usa.com) offers the ability to provide alimony payment
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scenarios and compute alimony based on the custodial parent’s budget needs, alimony versus child support trade-offs, lifestyle analysis, pension valuation, the present value of alimony for buyout, and equitable distribution scenarios for all 50 states. For New Jersey practitioners, Easy Soft offers its comprehensive NJ CIS software to provide calculations and scenarios for child support, spousal support, property division, and parenting plans. Document preparation is automated through its FamilyDocs module, which contains the entire library of the New Jersey Family Law Forms published by the New Jersey Institute for Continuing Legal Education. For New York practitioners, Easy Soft offers EZSupport-NY, providing electronic data collection from clients, child and spousal support work sheets, automatic calculations for child support and spousal support scenarios, and 27 integrated interactive forms specific to New York. Divi (www.divilegal.com) provides an option for those practitioners who may not have enough family law cases to sign on for unlimited access under an annual contract. They charge practitioners $75 per case rather than an annual fee. However, Divi is limited to property division analysis and reports. Margin Soft (www.marginsoft.net) provides child support guideline work sheets for Florida, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, and Washington. What’s really different about Margin Soft is that on the alimony side, the software generates recommendations based primarily on the factors listed in the respective state statutes. The vision of the software developer here is that the alimony recommendations generated by the program are to be used as a “tool” in evaluating alimony claims to determine what makes the most sense. There are also some other unique calculators, such as pension plan valuation, 72(t) early withdrawal calculator, tiering of child support in cases of multiple children, a tool to calculate child support or alimony when a payer receives variable bonuses, an overnight counter, and other miscellaneous financial calculators. FinPlan is offered by Thomson Reuters (legalsolutions.thomsonreuters.com/lawproducts/law-books/collections/finplan) and provides a full service suite of alimony and child support calculators, after-tax cash flow analysis, present values for alimony buyout, pension values, alimony recapture, and property division with equalizing payouts. Add-on programs include Assets Plus to prepare financial affidavits, Equal Shares to automatically separate marital and nonmarital assets for an easier property division, and Divorce Math Arrearage Calculator and Parenting Time Calculator to keep track of payments and parenting times. FinPlan has versions for 42 different states. For the California practitioner, Thomas Reuters offers through its California Family Law Report (CFLR) the DissoMaster Suite, which calculates child and spousal support, property division, and support arrearages. For automated forms, Thomson Reuters offers ProDoc for California, Florida, and Texas.
Technology for Parenting Issues Up to this point, we’ve been talking about technology for financial issues in family law. But what about the children? How can we be more efficient and effective in helping our clients work through their differences regarding parenting issues? Yes, you guessed it . . . there is an app for that, too. Our Family Wizard (ourfamilywizard.com) is designed to provide parents with tools for organization and communication, which can make a significant difference in everything from legal proceedings to working out visits for the children. This software provides parents with a single location for every type of parenting tool, from calendars to court information to educational and medical records for the kids. It can even track calendars or suggested schedule changes up to three years in advance. With Our Family Wizard, there is no more “he said/she said” because everything is documented. Not only is everything on the calendar, but there is an expense log, an information bank for school and medical data, a journal for private or shared entries to document what really happened, a message board for the family, educational tools, and even different levels of access for different family members. The kids will have access to the calendar so they know what their schedule is, the grandparents and care providers can have whatever level of access is deemed appropriate, and third parties such as lawyers and counselors can be provided access as well. Custody X Change (custodyxchange.com) has a module for lawyers and another for parents. The parent module allows you to customize parenting calendars to include a separate schedule for summer vacation, your own defined holidays, and special events. And it will calculate the percentage of time with each parent. Not only can you print the calendar but you also can export it to your phone or computer calendar. Additional parenting applications include actual time tracking, expense tracking, and a journal for medical and school information. The professional module also includes a parenting plan document with more than 100 customizable parenting provisions.
Conclusion Technology can be intimidating at the onset. But once you find the program that suits your practice best, you will find yourself much more efficient with your time and be able to provide more effective counsel to your clients.