Intake Forms for Family Law Attorneys: Custody Schedules, Asset Classification, and Protective Order Screening

By Daniel Akselrod · July 2026

A family law attorney who opens a new matter with nothing more than a name, a spouse’s name, and “we want a divorce” is going to spend the first three billable hours asking questions that a well-designed intake form would have answered before the consultation. Family law is not one practice area — it is a dozen, each with completely different procedural requirements, evidentiary needs, and emotional dynamics. The difference between a contested divorce with business assets and a stepparent adoption is so vast that the only thing connecting them is the courthouse they file in. Your intake form has to route to the right track before anything else happens.

A generic civil litigation intake will not get you there. Family law intake demands specificity about custody arrangements, asset classification, income structures, and — critically — safety. Here is what your family law intake form needs to capture from the first contact.

Case type classification: routing to the right track

Every family law matter starts with a threshold question: what kind of case is this? The intake form needs checkboxes or a classification section that distinguishes between fundamentally different proceedings. A divorce intake has to distinguish contested from uncontested because the document production, discovery scope, and timeline are entirely different. A child custody matter could be an initial determination, a modification of an existing order, or an emergency motion — each triggers different legal standards and burden-of-proof requirements.

Beyond divorce and custody, the form should capture adoption matters — stepparent, agency, and private adoption each involve different home study requirements and consent procedures. Prenuptial and postnuptial agreements require disclosure of assets before the agreement is even drafted. Domestic violence and protective order cases often need same-day or next-day filings. Guardianship, paternity, and child support modification round out the case types. Getting this classification wrong at intake means your entire file is organized around the wrong framework, and you will not discover the mistake until you are deep into the matter.

Custody and parenting time: the details that determine outcomes

Custody disputes are won or lost on specifics, and those specifics need to be captured at intake — not reconstructed weeks later from a client’s fading memory. The form should document the current living arrangement for each child, including which parent each child has been primarily residing with and for how long. Existing court orders from any jurisdiction need to be identified immediately because they control what you can and cannot do procedurally.

The current parenting schedule requires granular documentation: who has the children on weekdays, weekends, holidays, and during summer. Each parent’s work schedule and childcare arrangements directly affect what custody arrangement the court will consider practical. The child’s school and extracurricular schedule matters because courts do not want to uproot children from established routines. Relocation plans by either parent trigger completely different legal standards in most states — some require court approval before moving even 50 miles.

The intake form must also screen for substance abuse or mental health concerns about either parent, because these affect custody presumptions. A history of domestic violence changes the legal analysis in virtually every state, often creating rebuttable presumptions against custody for the abusive parent. Missing this at intake can mean filing the wrong type of motion entirely.

Asset and liability classification: the marital vs. separate property divide

In equitable distribution states — which is most of them — the single most important date in a divorce is the date of marriage, because everything acquired after that date is presumptively marital property. The intake form needs to capture the marriage date prominently and then walk through asset categories with that dividing line in mind.

Real property requires its own section: the marital home, investment properties, vacation homes, and any property acquired before the marriage that may have been commingled. Retirement accounts demand individual attention because a 401(k), an IRA, a pension, and stock options each have different valuation and division rules — a QDRO for a pension is a completely different instrument than splitting an IRA. Business interests add another layer of complexity: a sole proprietorship, a partnership interest, and an LLC membership each may require forensic accounting to value.

Debts need equal attention. Mortgage obligations, credit card balances, student loans, auto loans, and tax obligations all need to be catalogued. The intake form should also ask about inheritance received during the marriage — separate property in most states, but commingling with marital funds can change that classification entirely.

Income and support: building the foundation for alimony and child support

Support calculations — both alimony and child support — depend on accurate income documentation, and the intake form needs to capture enough detail to identify what documents you will need to request. Each party’s employment situation requires specifics: employer name, position, base salary, and whether income includes bonuses, commissions, or overtime. Self-employment income requires different documentation than W-2 wages and is far more susceptible to underreporting.

Health insurance is a frequently overlooked intake item that becomes critical in the final judgment: who currently provides coverage, what is the monthly cost, and which children are covered. Childcare expenses, special needs of the children — medical, educational, or extraordinary — and the overall lifestyle during the marriage are all relevant to support determinations in many jurisdictions. A client who cannot describe their standard of living during the marriage will struggle to support a maintenance claim.

Safety screening: the section that cannot be optional

Every family law intake form needs a dedicated safety screening section, and it cannot be buried at the end as an afterthought. The form should ask directly about any history of domestic violence — physical, emotional, financial, and stalking. It needs to identify current protective orders in any jurisdiction and ask about weapons in the home.

The safety section should also capture information that many attorneys overlook: threats against the client or children that have not yet resulted in a protective order, safe contact methods for the client (some clients cannot receive mail or phone calls at their home address), and whether the opposing party knows about the consultation. If the other party does not know the client is seeking legal counsel, safety planning may need to happen before any filing occurs. A client who walks in for a “simple divorce” may actually be in a situation that requires emergency relief, and you will not know unless the intake form asks.

Why generic forms fail family law practices

The challenge with family law intake is that the information you need varies dramatically based on the case type, but you often do not know the full scope of the case until you have collected the information. A client who comes in for a custody modification may also need a protective order. A client filing for divorce may not realize their spouse’s business interest requires a forensic accountant. A well-structured intake form surfaces these issues early, before the attorney has committed to a strategy that does not account for them.

A purpose-built family law intake form with proper case type routing, detailed custody documentation, structured asset classification, and mandatory safety screening gives your practice the foundation to handle every matter correctly from the first meeting. It also demonstrates to clients that you take their case seriously enough to ask the right questions — which matters in a practice area where trust is everything.