AGENDA

The 2.5-day conference promises to be a memorable event and touch on a variety of key topics impacting the divorce and finance niche today. The complete agenda is listed below.

2016 Conference Agenda – Thursday May 5th

7:30am – 8:30am Registration and Breakfast
9:00am – 10:30am Don’t Let Your Practice Go the Way of the Dodo Bird: An Update on the Industry

Don’t Let Your Practice Go the Way of the Dodo Bird: An Update on the Industry

From robo-advisors and artificial intelligence to alimony reform: Where is the industry going and how do you position your practice so you don’t get blindsided by these fast-moving changes?

Speaker

  • Jeff Landers

10:30am – 11:00am Morning Break and Vendor Expo
11:00am – 12:30pm How QDROs Divide Retirement Plans on Divorce or Separation: What Divorce Financial Analysts Need to Know

How QDROs Divide Retirement Plans on Divorce or Separation: What Divorce Financial Analysts Need to Know

Often, it is assumed that dividing a retirement plan on divorce or separation is simple or easy, when the precision necessary to effectuate the parties’ intent is surprising. The owner of QDROExpress, LLC, Robert Treat, JD, APA, will guide you through how Qualified Domestic Relations Orders divide retirement plans and provide practical tips and advice important to divorce financial analysts.

Speaker

  • Bob Treat

12:30pm – 1:30pm Lunch and Vendor Expo
1:30pm – 2:30pm Hidden Psychological Factors in Financial Decision-Making: Helping Your Clients Navigate the Dangers

Hidden Psychological Factors in Financial Decision-Making: Helping Your Clients Navigate the Dangers

Natasha Kendal, Ph.D., Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist will discuss the little-understood emotional and psychological factors that influence financial decision-making. Factors such as the effects of gender, age, and early experiences will be addressed. The negative effects of temporary emotional challenges due to the stress of divorce and more permanent mental illnesses (attention issues, anxiety, depression, age-related decline) will also be analyzed.

Speaker

  • Natasha Kendal, PH.D

2:30pm – 4:00pm Real Estate & Divorce: The 800-pound Financial Gorilla in the Divorce Process

Real Estate & Divorce: The 800-pound Financial Gorilla in the Divorce Process

“You can do anything with real estate except eat it and move it.” -- William Zeckendorf

This presentation is intended to give the divorce practitioner a 360 degree view of the financial planning, tax, and practical execution aspects of real estate and divorce. We will review basic real estate finance, banking requirements for financing and refinancing different property types, characteristics of major real estate categories, their capital composition and their position in the marital portfolio. You will become familiar with the tax characteristics of the sale of the marital home including capital gain exclusions, implications of depreciation and depreciation recapture for rental property, vacation homes, practice tips, and other topics. It doesn’t attempt to provide all the answers to all the possible permutations available in the tax code as the facts and circumstances of each case are as unique as your clients. This presentation is meant to make you aware of financial planning opportunities with regard to real estate and divorce. 

Speaker

  • Andrew Samalin

4:00pm – 4:30pm Afternoon Break and Vendor Expo
4:30pm – 5:30pm Family Law Software Workshop

Family Law Software Workshop

Family Law Software Boot Camp: This workshop will cover the key skills you will need to create a financial plan for a divorcing couple. We will start with the alternative ways you can gather and enter the data, and proceed to discuss some of the key steps you will take to understanding and organizing the parties’ financial information. Finally, we will look at some of the options you have for presenting the information in the way most likely to enable clients and attorneys to make sound financial decisions.

Speaker

  • Dan Caine

4:30pm – 5:30pm Future of Divorce: High Tech & High Touch Workshop

Future of Divorce: High Tech & High Touch Workshop

Speaker

  • Tamara Marshall

5:30pm – 7:30pm Welcome Reception

2016 Conference Agenda – Friday May 6th

7:30am – 8:30am Breakfast and Vendor Expo
8:30am – 10:00am Social Security & Divorce: How the New Claiming Rules Impact Your Divorcing Clients

Social Security & Divorce: How the New Claiming Rules Impact Your Divorcing Clients

This workshop will address Social Security with case studies, including disability benefits, retirement benefits, spousal and ex-spousal benefits, and survivor benefits including same-sex couples; how the end of “File and Suspend” and “Restricted Application” strategies affect the “grey divorce”; and discussion on the new deemed filing rules and how they impact your divorcing clients.

Speaker

  • Rita Medaglio-Barrera

10:00am – 10:30am Morning Break and Vendor Expo
10:30am – 11:30am Retiring Retirement: The Era of Longevity Planning

Retiring Retirement: The Era of Longevity Planning

At some point in life, every woman experiences a change that’s so significant it turns her world upside down. Between the end of the life she’s lived - “the known” - and the beginning of her new life - “the unknown” - is transition. During this session we will discuss life endings, women in transition, the intellectual and emotional effects of transition on women, and why women who’ve experienced a significant life transition are excellent candidates for a process we call “life reimagining."

Speaker

  • Jan Holman

11:30am – 12:30pm A Seat At The Table: Providing Essential Advice That Makes You Indispensable To Centers of Influence

A Seat At The Table: Providing Essential Advice That Makes You Indispensable To Centers of Influence

An important element in growing a practice requires positioning yourself as an indispensable part of a team of professionals in the domestic relations field. The subject of extended care is often ignored by legal and financial individuals, affecting your business model of providing proper advice to clients who are divorcing and/or contemplating remarriage.

Join attorney Harley Gordon, the founder of the CLTC designation, as he shares his marketing and sales insight on how to increase your influence with centers of influence by discussing a subject that if left unattended stands to have serious if not irreversible consequences to your clients.

Speaker

  • Harley Gordon

12:30pm – 1:30pm Lunch and Vendor Expo
1:30pm – 3:30pm Lawyers and CDFAs: Compassionate Collaboration

Lawyers and CDFAs: Compassionate Collaboration

Kim and Ashley will begin with setting the foundation by discussing compassion. What is it and how do we show it? How can we demonstrate compassion with ourselves and with others whose lives we touch? What are some skills that help us stay in a base of compassion? Then Amy and Cindy will talk about how this plays out in the collaborative divorce and how CDFAs can market their services from this new paradigm.

Speaker

  • Kimberly Stamatelos, Attorney & Mediator

  • Ashley Tollakson, Attorney & Mediator

  • Amy Skogerson, Attorney & Mediator

  • Cindy Gleason, CDFA

3:30pm – 4:00pm Afternoon Break and Vendor Expo
4:00pm – 5:00pm For Better or Worse: Cautionary Tales & Success Stories Based on Real Clients Going through Divorce

For Better or Worse: Cautionary Tales & Success Stories Based on Real Clients Going through Divorce

Divorce financial planning is the natural work of Certified Financial Planners and CDFAs. Today it is too often handled by the wrong professional to the detriment of the client who does not know why they should hire someone with specific expertise. For better or worse, learn from a CFP/CDFA who works on three to five cases per week and will walk you through how to build a successful practice as well as share cautionary tales and success stories based on real clients.

Speaker

  • Bonnie Sewell

5:00pm – 6:00pm Practice Essentials Tool Box: The Nuts and Bolts of Setting Up and Maintaining Your CDFA Practice

Practice Essentials Tool Box: The Nuts and Bolts of Setting Up and Maintaining Your CDFA Practice

Key elements of the CDFA practice will be discussed, including:

  1. Practice set up: Figuring out your CDFA road map and service offerings
  2. Establishing and maintaining client expectations
  3. Handling key areas of analysis: Child and spousal support, bonuses, etc.
  4. Client interactions: Meeting protocols, boundaries, and how to tackle the order and flow of the financial analysis tasks for the client.

And much more! Whether you are new to the CDFA practice or you have been practicing for a longer period of time, don’t miss this opportunity to learn how to create, improve, and maintain a solid foundation for the growth of your practice!

Speaker

  • Karen D. Sparks, CDFA, J.D.

5:00pm – 6:00pm Advanced Financial Presentations with Family Law Software

Advanced Financial Presentations with Family Law Software

This workshop will cover selected advanced topics in financial analysis and presentation. Topics will include various ways to explore and present budget alternatives, and nuances in the computation of property division on an after-tax basis.

Speaker

  • Dan Caine

8:15pm – 9:45pm Evening Activity: River and Lake Sightseeing Cruise

2016 Conference Agenda – Saturday May 7th

8:00am – 9:00am Breakfast and Vendor Expo
9:00am – 10:15am Marketing Your Divorce Practice in the Digital World

Marketing Your Divorce Practice in the Digital World

Very quickly, the Internet has gone from a technical fascination to a business must. How can you harness the power of the digital world to market your divorce practice? Learn how to build your online presence and drive prospective clients to your non-digital door.

Speaker

  • Loretta Hutchinson

10:15am – 10:45am Morning Break and Vendor Expo
10:45am – 12:00pm When Divorce Ends, Watch Your Life Begin

When Divorce Ends, Watch Your Life Begin

Using modern neuroscience research, along with the grammar of graphics, learn how you can use data visualizations to help communicate vital financial information to your clients. Show them, using data visualization best practices, what their life looks like at the time of divorce, and show them in the fastest and most efficient way possible what their financial life can look like post-divorce. The human brain processes images 700,000 times faster than text, yet CDFAs primary tools are spreadsheets, equations, and numbers. What charts are used, are generally poorly constructed and poorly considered. Become a divorce visualization rockstar at this session.

Speaker

  • Michael Kothakota

Schedule subject to change.