Pre-Legal Financial Advisory · Divorce Data Construction
For women whose finances are genuinely complex — equity compensation, ownership interests, multiple entities, trusts, assets held somewhere they cannot see. The work of establishing what is actually there belongs at the beginning, and it is accounting work, not legal work.
Apply for a private consultationPrivate consulting applications are open · Six engagements per quarter · Greenwich, Connecticut
01 Who this is for
The most financially capable women I work with are often the ones who cannot begin.
She runs a division, or a company, or a practice. She reads a P&L faster than the people who prepare it. And when the task is her own marital estate, she stalls — for months, sometimes longer.
It is not a competence problem. The records live in eleven places. The categories are unfamiliar. In a great many marriages one person has handled the money for years, and that arrangement is sometimes deliberate. So the work gets postponed, the attorney meeting arrives anyway, and decisions are made on an incomplete picture. Those decisions are difficult to undo.
This engagement exists so that does not happen.
02 Three questions that decide the outcome
Every account, entity, property, plan and policy in the marriage — including those held in his name that you may still have a claim to. Most people can name about half from memory. The half they cannot name is where the money is.
A defensible figure built from records rather than recollection. Support is negotiated against this number. Understate it at the outset and you will be held to the understatement.
Where a spouse controls a business, Schedule K-1 ordinary income and actual cash distributions are frequently not the same figure. Settlements are negotiated as though they are. Reading that difference is an accounting question, and it is answered before negotiation rather than during it.
03 The engagements
Comprehensive
A complete financial position, built from source records, delivered before you retain counsel or respond to a single discovery request. Every account and entity identified and traced. Compensation reconstructed across salary, bonus, deferred arrangements and equity. Business income examined for the difference between what is reported and what is actually distributed. Household cost established from twelve months of real spending. Assets and liabilities reconciled so nothing in the file contradicts anything else in it.
You receive a document set your attorney can work from immediately, and a plain-language explanation of what it says about your position — so that you are the most informed person in the room rather than the least.
Typically four to six weeks. Fee quoted after a scoping conversation, because it depends on the number of years, entities and accounts involved — none of which is knowable in advance.
Focused
A narrower engagement for a situation that is urgent, or simpler, or already partly assembled. A structured review of what you have, an accurate statement of what it shows, and a specific list of what is missing and where it is likely to be found — sized to be completed quickly.
Typically one to two weeks. Fee quoted after the same scoping conversation.
If neither is the right size, there is a single-hour session at a published fee, and free material explaining what the Connecticut affidavit asks for.
04 What I am, and what I am not
I am a licensed CPA with fifteen years in tax, restructuring and complex multi-entity work. I am not a forensic accountant, a certified fraud examiner, or a credentialed business valuator, and I will not present myself as one. If your matter reaches the point of requiring courtroom testimony from a credentialed expert, I will say so plainly and help your counsel find the right person.
I am also not an attorney, and nothing here is legal advice. You will need a family law attorney, and this work makes theirs sharper and considerably cheaper — a client who arrives with organized records and a clear financial position spends far less in billable hours, and asks for more, because she knows what there is to ask for.
Engagements are taken selectively. Six per quarter, so that each one has the attention it requires.
05 How it begins
A confidential conversation, at no charge, to establish whether this is the right engagement for your situation — and whether I am the right person for it.
Write from an address only you control. If you need particular arrangements around how and when I contact you, say so and I will follow them exactly.
Apply nowAnswered personally, in confidence. No mailing list, no follow-up sequence.
However this works, it works at your pace. I explain what I am looking at in plain language, I do not assume you should already know it, and I will tell you what I actually see rather than what is easiest to hear. Women going through this are handled a great deal — by attorneys, by institutions, sometimes by a spouse. That is not what happens here.
Apply for a private consultationEvery inquiry is treated with complete confidentiality.