An Ohio divorce attorney who cares about securing your requests for child support and spousal support will advise you to authorize the hiring of a vocational expert. Research and analyses performed by the vocational expert provide the numbers you and your divorce lawyer use to negotiate with your soon-to-be ex-spouse and, if necessary, make your case in court. 

When pressed for further explanations of the most important reasons to add a vocational expert to a client’s divorce team, the family law attorneys with Edward F. Whipps & Associates start with the following five statements. 

Your work history and earning potential matters. 

As we state elsewhere in a summary of the services we make available to men and women seeking to end a marriage in Ohio by divorce or dissolution, a vocational expert starts by collecting information on your age, health, education, work history, and skills. This information, culled from in-person interviews and reviews of your resume and other records, allows the vocational expert to create a profile of how much you may earn from work in the first few years after your divorce and over the course of your life until retirement. 

Amounts and schedules for child support and alimony are set according to need. Your need, which can also be defined as your ability to provide for yourself and your children by relying only on your own earnings, constitutes the most significant factor in the calculations of how much support your ex-spouse should pay and for how long. 

Your ex’s work history and earnings potential matters. 

Your divorce team’s vocational expert will also create an earnings profile of your spouse and check his or her conclusions against the profile produced by your spouse’s divorce team. Major differences in the pictures painted could represent an intentional, and unfair, effort to misrepresent your ex’s obligation and ability to pay child support and spousal support. When such underhanded tactics are suspected, your Ohio divorce attorney has a range of legal tools to use to compel your spouse to disclose factual information. 

Local employment and wage trends matter. 

Determining future earnings requires conducting a salary survey that looks backwards and forwards. Knowledge of trends in industries and policy, as well as access to in-depth private and government research, is needed to accurately predict what you and your spouse are likely to earn over time. A qualified, dedicated vocational expert will have the skills and experience needed to find and process all the data needed to make good projections.

 National employment and wage trends matter. 

Jobs often take people out of state, and even overseas. A significant component of the earnings profile will reflect countrywide and international realities that a person who is not a vocational expert would be prone to overlook or discount. 

An expert can connect you with other experts. 

The vocational expert your Edward F. Whipps & Associates family law attorney recommends for your divorce team will not operate in a vacuum. He or she will have longstanding and cooperative professional relationships with physical and occupational therapists, medical care providers, and financial analysts who can offer invaluable second opinions on your and ex-spouse’s abilities to work and earning significant salaries. 

To learn more about how a vocational expert can help you secure sufficient child support and spousal support, schedule a consultation. You can reach us by calling (614) 461-6006 or completing this online contact form.