Solo and small divorce law practices waste hours on intake calls that never convert, copy-paste discovery checklists, and model settlements in brittle spreadsheets. AI agents fix all three.

AI for Divorce Lawyers: Streamline Intake, Discovery, and Settlement Modeling

There are roughly 750,000 divorces filed in the US every year. And behind almost every one of them is a family law attorney drowning in administrative work.

Here is what nobody tells you about running a solo or small divorce law practice: you spend more time on intake, scheduling, and document prep than you do on actual legal strategy.

The average family law attorney bills 1,800 hours per year. But for every billable hour, there are 1.5-2 hours of non-billable work. Intake calls. Conflict checks. Discovery checklists. Settlement spreadsheets. Client hand-holding.

That math does not work. And it is why 67% of solo practitioners report burnout.

The 45-Minute Intake Call That Should Have Been 5 Minutes

Let me describe the most expensive waste in a divorce practice.

Your phone rings. Potential client. You spend 45 minutes on the phone:

10 minutes on basic facts (names, marriage date, children, county)
10 minutes on financial overview (income, assets, debts)
10 minutes on their story (what happened, what they want)
15 minutes on your process and fees

You hang up. You enter the information into your case management system. That takes another 15 minutes.

Then the prospect ghosts you. They were calling 4 other attorneys. They went with someone cheaper. Or they reconciled.

Your conversion rate on intake calls? Industry average is 30-40%. That means 60-70% of those 45-minute calls produce zero revenue.

Do the math: 10 intake calls per week, 45 minutes each, 7 of them go nowhere. That is 5.25 hours of unbillable time. Every single week. At $350/hour, that is $1,837 in lost productivity weekly. $95,550 per year.

Now imagine this instead.

A prospective client visits your website at 11 PM (because that is when people research divorce lawyers, not during business hours). An AI intake agent walks them through a structured questionnaire:

Jurisdiction and basic facts
Children and custody preferences
High-level asset and debt inventory
Urgency and specific concerns
Conflict check against your existing client list

By the time you look at it the next morning, you have a complete intake summary with a conflict check already done. You know if this is a case you want. You know the complexity level. You know their budget expectations.

Your first call with this person? 15 minutes. Focused on strategy and fit. Not data entry.

The 45-minute call becomes a 5-minute pre-screen. And your conversion rate goes up because you are only talking to qualified prospects.

The Discovery Checklist Problem

Every divorce attorney has a discovery template. Most of them are Word documents they have been copy-pasting and editing for years.

Here is the problem: discovery is not one-size-fits-all, but most practices treat it that way.

A high-asset divorce with a family business, stock options, and rental properties needs a completely different discovery approach than a short-term marriage with no kids and a joint checking account.

But customizing discovery requests for every case takes time. So attorneys use the same 40-item checklist and hope for the best. They over-request on simple cases (annoying opposing counsel and running up costs) and under-request on complex cases (missing assets that surface later).

An AI agent changes this equation.

Feed it the intake summary and it generates a case-specific discovery checklist weighted by relevance:

High-asset case? It adds business valuation discovery, stock option vesting schedules, and beneficial ownership requests.
Custody dispute? It adds school records, medical records, and communication pattern requests.
Short marriage, no kids? It strips the list down to the 12 items that actually matter.

One family law attorney told me: "I used to spend 2 hours customizing discovery for each case. Now the agent gives me a draft in 3 minutes that is 90% right. I spend 10 minutes reviewing and adjusting. That is a 10x improvement."

And because the agent learns from your adjustments, it gets better over time. After 20 cases, it knows your preferences. After 50, it is practically reading your mind.

Settlement Modeling in Spreadsheets Is Malpractice-Adjacent

I am being provocative on purpose, but hear me out.

Most divorce attorneys model settlements in Excel. They have a spreadsheet with asset columns, debt columns, and some basic formulas. They plug in numbers and show the client "here is what 60/40 looks like vs. 50/50."

The problems:

No tax impact modeling. Splitting a $500K brokerage account is not the same as splitting a $500K 401(k). The after-tax values are dramatically different. Most spreadsheets ignore this.
No scenario comparison. Clients need to see 3-5 scenarios side by side with trade-offs clearly labeled. Building those in Excel takes hours.
No present value calculations. A $2,000/month alimony payment for 5 years is not worth $120,000. It is worth less, and the discount rate matters. Most attorneys skip this math.
No sensitivity analysis. What if the house appraises $50K higher? What if the business valuation comes in lower? What changes?

An AI settlement modeling agent handles all of this. Feed it the financial discovery data and it generates:

Multiple scenarios with after-tax asset values
Present value calculations for ongoing support payments
Sensitivity tables showing how outcomes change with key variable shifts
Plain-language summaries you can actually share with clients

One attorney who adopted this approach said her settlement conferences became dramatically more productive. "Instead of arguing about who gets the house, we could show both sides exactly what each scenario means in real dollars. Cases that used to take 3 settlement conferences now resolve in 1."

The Emotional Labor Tax

There is one more thing nobody talks about in family law automation.

Divorce clients are emotional. They call at 9 PM. They send 14-paragraph emails at midnight. They want reassurance, updates, and hand-holding.

And they should get that. It is one of the hardest things they will ever go through.

But for a solo practitioner handling 25-30 active cases, the emotional labor is crushing. You cannot be available 24/7. But clients feel abandoned when they cannot reach you.

An AI agent can bridge this gap. Not by replacing the human connection, but by handling the routine:

Automated case status updates so clients do not call asking "what is happening?"
After-hours FAQ responses answering common questions about the process
Document request follow-ups so you are not chasing clients for their financial disclosure

You stay available for the moments that matter. The tough conversations. The strategic decisions. The reassurance that only a human can provide. The agent handles the rest.

The Bottom Line for a Solo Practice

Let me make this concrete with real numbers for a solo family law practice:

Intake optimization: Save 5+ hours/week, increase conversion by 15-20%
Discovery automation: Save 1.5 hours per case, improve accuracy
Settlement modeling: Save 3-4 hours per case, better client outcomes
Client communication: Save 5+ hours/week on routine status inquiries

For a practice billing $350/hour, that is roughly $200,000/year in recovered capacity. And you do not need to hire a paralegal or associate to get it.

Try it yourself (free)

The Clawctl divorce law skill bundle includes intake screening, discovery generation, and settlement modeling agents built specifically for family law practices.

Explore the Divorce Law skill bundle and see what your practice looks like when you stop doing data entry and start doing legal strategy.

Get Started

Install Clawctl and set up the intake agent on your website. Configure it with your jurisdiction, practice areas, and conflict check list.
Deploy the discovery agent and feed it your existing discovery template. It will learn your preferences and start generating case-specific checklists.
Set up the settlement modeling agent with your state's tax tables and support guidelines. Run it on a current case and compare against your manual spreadsheet.
Configure client communication automations for case status updates and document request follow-ups. Start with your 5 most active cases.

AI for Divorce Lawyers: Streamline Intake, Discovery, and Settlement Modeling