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Family Law Software
Stop Estimating, Start Recovering! – Divorce Settlement Software
You may be in a bad habit without even realizing that it is costing your client money.
When you are negotiating a matrimonial settlement, do you concentrate on two or three big assets, use estimates, and say each party ‘keeps their own’ for everything else?
The problem with the approach of concentrating on only two or three obvious assets, like the house and a couple of retirement accounts, is that you miss out on how much everything else is worth.
Use Easy Soft’s “Divorce Software” to enter and add up checking accounts, savings accounts, savings bonds, stock certificates, rental deposits, and even cash in the cookie jar. On the other side of the divorce settlement negotiations ledger, major credit cards, store credit cards, deferred store loans on furniture, and overdue income taxes are just some of the bills that may only be in only one party’s name.
When you use the Easy Soft networth statement, you start to systematically add up the details that can be worth thousands of dollars. The client starts by filling out a questionnaire that is included with the Easy Soft Divorce Financials Software. You then have a thorough and systematic approach to begin inserting that client information into the networth statement.
Once that data is input to the networth statement, your divorce settlement negotiations are easy. Assign the asset and liability distribution and see the distribution lists and totals per party. Now those “little” items reveal themselves as the not-so-little totals in the overall divorce settlement negotiations.
At Easy Soft, we design our family law software with a low cost to you for a solid rate of return for each one of your clients. It’s no wonder “easy” is part of our name.
Cash Me Out! – Family Law Software
You’re working cases causing you to pull your hair out. You win a good temporary alimony figure for one client, but it isn’t regularly paid. Another client has a good case for an award of long-term alimony, but the breadwinner is on a short-term employment contract. And then there’s the client who suddenly says remarriage is already in the cards.
These scenarios and more are why we invented Easy Soft’s alimony buyout software. When you’re unsure whether a stream of alimony payments is going to benefit your client and there are assets against which to take an offset, why not use the Easy Soft Divorce Settlement Software, including its alimony buyout calculator to figure out the best divorce financial settlement for your client?
While you may end up using an accountant or CPA to arrive at the final figures before signing a deal, at the least, the Easy Soft Divorce Financial Settlement Software will give you figures you can use for estimates, negotiations, and agreements in principle – even for an alimony buyout computation.
Using the Divorce Software, you can enter up to five asset and liability configurations side-by-side and make comparisons. You can also change variables for the amount, duration, and discount rate used in performing the alimony buyout computation. During divorce settlement negotiations, use the alimony buyout computations as potential asset values and you can imagine how the payor can compensate your client for the value of the alimony claim.
So What is an Alimony Buy-Out, Anyway?
You’ve heard the phrase before “alimony buy-out,” but what does that really mean?
Alimony is typically a periodic payment, paid monthly or per paycheck, over a period of years.
When you “buyout” alimony, a calculation is made of how much that stream of periodic payments would be worth if it was paid in full today. In an alimony buy-out, a lump sum is given to compensate the receipt all-at-once instead of waiting for the string of periodic payments.
In fancier language, the alimony buy-out is a math formula known as a “present value”. The calculation of the total of the string of payments is the easier part; it’s amount times duration. The calculation for the “discount” is the harder part. The “discount” is the percentage deduction to reduce the string of payments into its value all-at-once, today.
Aren’t you glad Easy Soft has alimony buyout software so that you don’t have to do this on your own?
Included in Easy Soft’s “Divorce Financials Software” is an alimony buyout calculator. Perhaps you are looking for an estimated alimony buyout, early in the divorce settlement negotiations. Or perhaps you have a report from the opposing party, and you’re interesting in spinning up to five alimony buyout computations, side-by-side.
Performing the alimony buyout computation takes on value when it is readily available for you to consider how it might fit into the overall divorce financials settlement. For example, will your client be awarded a stream of payments that she never collects in full or will she get to keep all of the house equity, outright? Only when you have Easy Soft’s alimony buyout software will you be able to insert the buyout figure into the equitable distribution mix to maximize your client’s financial position.
Easy Soft’s alimony buyout software is so indispensable that there’s even a divorce financials App version for your smart phone and tablet. We don’t want you to find yourself in divorce settlement negotiations without it.
And, who knows? By the time you play around enough with Easy Soft’s Divorce Financials Software you might decide that you do like math, after all.
Marital Lifestyle & Alimony
One of the topics discussed at the 2012 Family Law Symposium under section “Arguments Lawyers Fail to Make” was related to the inadequacy of New Jersey’s official CIS form in the budget’s left hand column labeled “Joint Life Style” for the purpose of an alimony claim trial.
The logic goes like this; Marital Lifestyle figures for the supported spouse are likely to include the supporting spouse’s expenses that will not be paid by the supported spouse after the divorce. Normally, marital lifestyle figures play a critical role in alimony determination, but these figures are meant to include marital lifestyle of the supported spouse only.
The proposed supported spouse’s attorney questions the supported spouse, who says, “Yes, those are my expenses.” Then, the other party’s attorney should point out that the line item is, in fact, for the entire family before the separation. The supported spouse is put in a situation where he/she has to subtract from each line item, expenditures for the supporting spouse and the children. After all, why should the supported spouse receive alimony for expenditures that he/she would not and could not incur post judgment? However, is this common flaw in marital lifestyle budget presentations picked up and argued by lawyers regularly?
As your technology provider, we routinely work with lawyers and pro-actively provide practice solutions. We cannot and do not practice law, but we do provide you tools to solve issues like marital lifestyle and alimony issues very easily within our CIS software, New Jersey’s most popular child support program.
In your CIS program, section Part-D, click on “Show Individual Historical Expenditure.” Here, you can breakdown marital expenses – Expenses for the plaintiff only or for the defendant and children. You can then print a separate Lifestyle Expenditure report, which will show five columns side by side and is ready to enter as a trial exhibit, for an Early Settlement Panel or Economic Mediation. (Click here for an example sheet).
For trial preparation, have the litigant break down the marital lifestyle figures individually, so you do not count the supporting spouse’s expenses and the children’s expenses in the supported spouse’s lifestyle figures, thereby avoiding the aforementioned trap.
While we are on this topic, for the purpose of breakdown, children’s expenditures might be less critical because they are not expected to have separate expenses in each category. However, categorizing children’s expenses separately may be helpful because they will be useful for other purposes, such as quantifying extraordinary expenses for children, i.e. automobile insurance.
To learn more about this topic as well as many other program features you may not be utilizing or to watch an overview video, visit CIS Software’s web page.
February 1, 2012 in Family Law Software
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Technorati Tagged : child support for ny, CIS form, CIS program, CIS Software, divorce settlements
Technorati Tagged : child support for ny, CIS form, CIS program, CIS Software, divorce settlements
Turning Nightmares into Daydreams through the mEasySoft Mobile App
It’s the divorce lawyer’s worst nightmare: the judge looks at your papers during a conference and says, what if we change this one number?
Do you:
(a) Claim to be having an allergic reaction as you choke;
(b) Pull out a pencil and a calculator and try to slog through the math;
(c) Tell the judge you’ll be happy to do it back in your office to discuss at the next court conference; or,
(d) Pull out your tablet or smartphone and run the Easy Soft App to quickly provide the judge with the figures he’s requested?
Let Easy Soft turn the pace of modern technology to your client’s advantage with the mEasySoft FREE divorce settlement App.
If you’re an attorney in NJ, NY, PA, or AZ, simply prepare your support calculations in the comfort of your office using Easy Soft’s suite of family law software. In every state, use Easy Soft’s Divorce Financials Software to prepare your divorce settlements. Print out your crisp, clear worksheets, from networth statements to pension valuations for divorce, and get to court with confidence.
When the judge asks you to make that little change during the conference, simply smile, click on your Easy Soft divorce settlement App, change the number, and read the judge the new calculation right off your screen.
Next question: what if you run into a technical problem using your Easy Soft divorce settlement App while you’re sitting in chambers? No worries. Easy Soft provides the same great technical support for its phone and tablet applications as it does for all of its software products. Easy Soft offers on-line help guides, technical videos, webinars, and, of course, live technical support staff.
Easy Soft’s divorce financials App is like having your office in your pocket.
Daydreams encouraged in your new no-sweat zone.
From Horseback to Internet, Facilitating Your Client Meetings in Cyberspace
In days of yore, lawyers rode out on horseback to meet with their clients. Then, with the proliferation of automobiles, clients started driving into town to meet with their lawyer. Now, as the pace of society quickens, attorneys and clients might meet once to sign the Retainer Agreement and not again until court appearances.
If your clientele has gone virtual, you need Easy Soft’s family law programs, which allow you to print and mail, or, save and e-mail your work product to your clients.
Easy Soft divorce settlement software gives you the option of saving a draft in Microsoft Word or as a .pdf. As this two minute video of Easy Soft’s family law software will show you, the advantage of sending your client a Word document is that they can edit it. By contrast, sending your client a .pdf document means they can’t edit the draft and it retains its appearance when it’s opened on a client’s phone, tablet, or PC.
This fluid, electronic communication feature found in Easy Soft’s family law software can also be used for drafts to opposing counsel of divorce settlement proposals and divorce settlement contracts.
Easy Soft’s family law software also gives you the option to receive information from your client that you can import into the program. Just watch this five minute video to see how simple the Easy Soft family law software makes it for your client to communicate with you. Simply provide your client with the Easy Soft family law software form. Once it’s complete, your client e-mails it back to you. You review it and import it directly into your Easy Soft family law program.
Both Microsoft Word and Adobe Acrobat .pdfs are the most utilized programs of their kind. This means that you can send documents you produce with Easy Soft family law products to clients, attorneys, and judges without the recipient having to purchase or download Easy Soft products.
With the Easy Soft suite of family law programs, it’s like having an office meeting with your client in cyberspace.
