How Vocational Evaluation Can Help Your Divorce Case?

Sometimes, a divorce can involve two people parting ways as mature individuals. However, this is an exception and not the rule. Divorce proceedings usually turn ugly as emotions are high, there is history, and both parties have to face the reality of going their separate ways.

Add money into the mix, the problem can get even more exacerbated.

This is especially true regarding spousal support or alimony, where the amounts of financial support largely depend on the income of both parties. 

The best way to solve this issue is by hiring a vocational evaluation divorce expert to complete a comprehensive analysis of the spouses’ earning potential. That way, you can ensure that if there are any nefarious agendas regarding alimony, you won’t get unfairly punished by the divorce settlement, simply because you earn more money.

In the next few minutes, we’ll explore these experts in a bit more detail and give you a quick rundown of how a vocational evaluation divorce expert might be able to help you.

What Does a Vocational Expert Do?

Vocational experts are highly qualified individuals trained to evaluate earning capacity. Their findings are comprehensive and include looking at multiple factors such as an individual’s work history, education, and the job market in the area (which jobs are available). 

While vocational experts are mostly known for their role in personal injury, disability, and workers’ compensation cases, they are called in whenever they need to determine someone’s earning potential. This includes divorce cases as well. 

Vocational evaluation divorce experts offer their expert opinion on the earning capacity of the spouse in question by closely looking at their job skills and such. 

How precise are they in their evaluation? 

Quite precise, as they’re not going to let anything slide. For instance, if your spouse has the necessary job skills and good employment history, but the job market is limited at the time, or the economy is slow, their analysis will include those factors.

Why a Vocational Evaluation Divorce Expert Might Be Necessary?

We already mentioned how sensitive divorce is. The problem is that all this baggage usually gets compressed into a single legal pleading. Additionally, the spouses themselves might be unfamiliar with the legal system. 

Why does this matter, precisely?

Well, simple. The goal of the divorce case is to filter out unnecessary details and confirm the cold hard facts. But the spouses themselves often bring a lot of useless information that stems from unresolved emotions and resentment onto the table. 

Thus, details that matter can pretty much end up getting buried under the facts that are quite frankly useless in the court of law. The question of earning capacity often gets lost in the noise of emotional baggage and highly-emotional accusations.

Alimony or spousal support is a noble idea as it ensures that one spouse doesn’t end up in dire straits following the dissolution of a marriage. But as you know, more often than not, people will try to manipulate the legal system for not-so noble goals (especially scorned spouses, regardless of gender).

Situations in which spouses try to manipulate the circumstances to receive an unfair financial advantage in the divorce are pretty common. For example, one spouse might purposefully stay unemployed or be stuck in a low-paying job on purpose to maximize the amount of alimony they receive.

We’ve even heard of situations in which a highly-qualified spouse who’s been a stay-at-home parent will try to claim their status as a stay-at-home parent is relevant, even though the children have already left the nest, so to speak.

Hiring a vocational evaluation divorce expert is one of the best ways to clear the air and get the divorce case back on track. 

How a Vocational Assessment Can Help?

Vocational assessment can provide the court with a more realistic interpretation of the financial potential of the spouses. In other words, a vocational evaluation divorce expert can determine whether a person that receives the alimony truly has no earning potential or they are trying to abuse the system for financial gain.

By leveraging the techniques we discussed previously, a vocational evaluation divorce expert will determine the earning capacities of both parties.

So far, it’s one of the most effective ways to provide the most transparent and fair assessment of the question regarding alimony. Vocational assessment is a way to prove if the higher-earning spouse is trying to keep their income as low as possible to game the system, for instance, by quitting their job. 

On the other hand, a vocational evaluation divorce expert can also determine if the lower-earning party is misrepresenting their true earning potential to receive a larger amount of money.

However, the vocational evaluation would be redundant in certain situations. Depending on the facts of the case, hiring a vocational expert would be a waste of time and money. 

For instance, if the marriage lasted five decades and the spouse was unemployed for most of it, they’re over 65 and have a debilitating condition. We’re exaggerating a bit, but you get the picture. In a divorce case such as that one, generating a vocational report would be useless.

The same applies to short-term marriages. Paying attorney and vocational expert fees will put an unnecessary financial strain on both parties. Instead, it would be more reasonable for one spouse to agree to pay alimony for a limited time (for instance, half of the time the marriage lasted).

Can a Vocational Report Affect The Amount of Support

While nothing is set in stone, and a judge doesn’t have to follow the opinion of the vocational evaluation divorce expert, an expert opinion is usually highly persuasive. For instance, if you hire a vocational expert and your spouse doesn’t agree with the findings, to successfully refute the assessment, they’ll have to hire an expert themselves.

By receiving an analysis from the expert, the judge might adjust the amount of support to reflect the circumstances described in the report. 

For example, if the judge concludes that one of the spouses is earning below their true earning potential, the judge might order them to look for a better job. Additionally, if a spouse has insufficient work skills, the judge might even order them to get training to increase their chances of finding employment.

Playing By The Rules

Hiring a vocational expert is especially important for higher-earning spouses. Naturally, if you’re in that position, you must ensure that everyone plays by the rules. More importantly, ensure that you won’t experience financial harm because the judge got swindled by emotions.

Additionally, by hiring a vocational evaluation divorce expert, you might even encourage your soon-to-be former spouse to say yes to the settlement agreement. That way, you’ll both have an easier time by saving time and money on trial expenses.

If you’re wondering if hiring an expert is worth it, the answer is a resounding yes. A lower alimony amount will most likely offset any expenses for the vocation assessment.

If you want to keep things fair, you shouldn’t look further than OAS. We’ve got more than 40 years of experience handling tough divorce cases and still managed to help our clients. Call us at 1-800-292-1919 or fill out our online form and give us the details of your case and we’ll help keep your mind at ease!