In a Divorce Action in Supreme Court or a Support Proceeding in Family Court where one spouse is seeking maintenance or support from the other, it may be helpful to retain the services of an occupational or vocational evaluator to assess the request for financial support. 

 An occupational expert can be very helpful if a spouse is voluntarily unemployed or underemployed merely to receive a maintenance or support award.  The vocational expert can be hired to provide an opinion on the spouse’s ability to earn future income and therefore be self-supporting. 

The data that an occupational expert will need to develop their expert opinion is usually obtained by the vocational expert from objective sources, such as national and local salary statistics, and can be used to impute future income to the spouse seeking maintenance or support.  Typically, the expert also delves into the education, licensure and/or certification, employment history, and medical history (including any disabilities and impairments) of the spouse requesting financial support. The expert’s opinion can be a useful tool in eliminating or minimizing the amount or duration of any maintenance award.

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 6th, 2009 at 8:00 am and is filed under Spousal Maintenance. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.