Managing Divorced Client Records

Overview

Divorce is one of the most consequential life events a client can experience, and keeping your records up to date during the transition helps your team maintain a clear, accurate picture of each client's household structure, relationships, and service needs. Practifi's flexible record architecture makes it possible to reflect these changes cleanly, whether that means restructuring a shared household, updating contact statuses, or positioning a former spouse as their own independent client.

This article outlines best practices for managing divorce within client records. The steps provided are based on whether the spouse exists as a record within your Practifi organization. This is not an exhaustive list of scenarios that may occur for your clients, and custom workflows may be necessary for specific cases. Additionally, your firm may have a specific workflow that differs from the options outlined in this article. If you have questions about your firm's best practices for managing records of divorced clients, please contact your CSM.

• Spouse Exists in Practifi
• Spouse Does Not Exist in Practifi

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Spouse Exists in Practifi

When the divorcing couple exists in your organization as a Household record with Contact records for both the primary contact and the spouse, the spouse must be separated from the Household record and created as an Individual. This gives each person their own distinct record and allows your firm to manage its relationship with them independently in the future.

Service record management will depend on your firm's decisions about how these services should be allocated and managed in light of the Client's divorce decisions. These instructions will only cover the management of the actual Client records and how to separate the spousal record into the new Individual record.  

1. On the Client record, click the Overview icon in the record side panel. 
   
   
    
2. Click the primary contact's name on the Household Members list.
   
   
    
3. Scroll to the Life Events section and click the pencil edit icon next to the Marital Status field. 
   
   
    

4. Select Divorced or Separated from the drop-down menu to reflect the client's marital status. 

   

5. Click Save to finalize this change. 
6. Navigate to the Client record Overview and click the spouse's name under Household Members. 
   
   
    
7. Scroll to the Personal Information section and click the pencil edit icon next to the Marital Status field. 
8. Select Divorced or Separated from the drop-down menu to reflect the client's marital status. 
9. Click Save to finalize this change. 
10. On the spouse's Contact record, select the caret located on the page actions. 
    
    
     
11. Select Convert to Individual from the drop-down menu.
    
    
     
12. In the Convert to Individual pop-up, click Next to continue with the conversion. 
13. On the new Individual record, select the pencil edit icon next to Primary Entity. 
14. Click the X located in the Primary Entity field to remove this value.
15. Click Save to finalize this change.

    • Please note: The Individual record is created as a contact record. It can be promoted to a Prospect record by clicking the Actions button in the record side panel and selecting the Promote to Prospect option. Once promoted to a Prospect, click the Actions button and click Promote to Client. This change will depend on your firm's relationship with the ex-spouse and whether continued business is anticipated.

16. On the Household record, select the People & Relationships icon.
    
    
     
17. Locate the spouse on the Members list, then click the caret in the far-right column. 
18. Select Delete from the drop-down menu. This will remove this contact's relationship with the household but will not delete the contact's record.
19. In the Delete Relationship pop-up, click Delete to finalize this deletion.
20. If desired, the relationship can be recaptured under the Relationships subtab using a custom relationship type such as ex-wife, ex-husband, or ex-spouse. For more information on creating a custom relationship type, please consult our Creating Relationship Types article.
21. If necessary, the original record's Entity Name can be modified to reflect the singular contact. To modify the Entity Name:
    1. Click the Overview icon in the record side panel.
    2. Click on the Basics subtab.
    3. Click the pencil edit icon next to the Entity Name field and make any necessary adjustments. 
    4. Click Save to finalize this change.
22. If desired, a custom field to capture the date of divorce a custom field can be created in your organization. To create this field, please consult our Creating and Editing Fields article.

Dependent management will depend on the circumstances of the divorce and whether the ex-spouse has been added as a Client or Prospect Household within your organization. Typically, dependents will remain under the original household record, and the best practice is to mark them as members of a singular household. If custody is shared, the connection can be captured on the ex-spouse's record as a relationship.

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Spouse Does Not Exist in Practifi

If the spouse was never added to your organization as a member of the client's household, the steps are more straightforward. In this scenario, you only need to update the existing client record to reflect their new marital status.

1. Navigate to the Individual's record and click the Overview icon on the record side panel.
   
    
    
2. Click the Basics subtab in the Overview section. 
   
   
    
3. Scroll to the Life Events section and click the pencil edit icon next to the Marital Status field. 
   
   
    

4. Select Divorced or Separated from the drop-down menu to reflect the Client's marital status. 

   

5. Click Save to finalize this change. 
6. If desired, a custom field can be created in your organization to capture the date of divorce. To create this field, please consult our Creating and Editing Fields article.