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You can tell within the first five minutes which lawyers came to move the file and which ones came because the rules made them show up. The prepared ones have a brief that reads like a plan. The others have a brief that reads like a complaint. A case conference is not a hearing, and it is not a rehearsal for trial. It is a chance to reduce the issues in dispute, get a procedural decision, and leave with a schedule. Here is a checklist for doing exactly that.
Before You Draft the Brief
Most weak briefs are weak because the lawyer started typing before they thought. Do the thinking first. Open the file and answer three questions on a scratch pad: what is genuinely in dispute, what is only in dispute because nobody has confirmed the numbers, and what could settle today if the other side heard the right proposal.
Then pull your foundations together so you are not drafting from memory. You want disclosure status, a clean chronology, and the last offer on the table in front of you.
- A current financial statement, sworn and up to date, not the one from eight months ago.
- A one page chronology so the judge can orient fast. If you do not have a reusable format for this, our guide to building a family file chronology is a good place to start.
- A disclosure tracker showing what has been produced, what is outstanding, and what you have actually asked for in writing.
Tip. Draft your brief to be read in under four minutes. The judge has a full list that morning and will skim. Lead with the issues to be narrowed, not the history of the marriage.
The Issues to Narrow in Advance
Narrowing is the whole point. A conference that touches ten issues resolves none of them. Before you walk in, sort every issue into one of three buckets: agreed, ready to argue, and not ripe. Agreed issues get written up. Ripe issues get a specific ask. Not ripe issues get a deadline so they become ripe by the next appearance.
Call opposing counsel two or three days out. Not to negotiate the whole file, just to confirm what is already common ground. You will almost always find that parenting time on school days, or the value of one account, or the date of separation, is not actually contested. Lock those down before the conference so you are not spending the judge's time on things you both already accept.
Where disclosure is the real blocker, name it plainly. Half of what looks like a substantive dispute is just missing documents. If you have been chasing production, come with the paper trail, and see our note on managing disclosure obligations so your request is clean enough for the court to enforce.
What Judges Wish You Would Concede
The single fastest way to earn a judge's trust is to give ground on something before you are asked. Lawyers who concede nothing get treated as unreliable narrators of their own file. Lawyers who concede the obvious get listened to on the things that matter.
Look at your file honestly and find the concession you can make without hurting your client. It is almost always there.
| What lawyers fight over | What is often worth conceding |
|---|---|
| Every line of the other side's financial statement | The figures you cannot actually disprove |
| The exact separation date to the day | A date range everyone can live with |
| Who gets the file heard first | A reasonable timetable that binds both sides |
| The characterization of past conduct | Anything not relevant to the relief you are seeking |
Conceding is not losing. It is spending your credibility where it counts. When you tell the judge you accept three of the four points, your position on the fourth carries weight.
Note. A concession made at a conference is not evidence at trial in the way an admission is, but check your rules and your jurisdiction. Frame it as a position for today's purposes if you need room later.
Asking for Something Specific
Vague requests get vague results. "We would like some direction on disclosure" invites nothing. "We ask that the respondent produce the 2024 and 2025 corporate financials and the last two years of bank statements within twenty-one days" invites an order. Bring the wording you want. Judges are far more likely to grant relief they can copy down than relief they have to compose.
Decide before you arrive what the one thing is that would move the file. A production deadline. A referral to a parenting assessment. A date for the next step. Interim support on consent. Whatever it is, ask for it in plain words, with a date attached, and be ready to explain in one sentence why it is fair.
Come with the order you want already written. The judge can always change it, but they cannot grant what you never asked for. Devon Reyes
If settlement is genuinely in reach, the conference is your moment. A clear, reasonable proposal delivered in front of a judge lands differently than one buried in a letter. Our piece on framing settlement offers covers how to put one so it is hard to dismiss.
Leaving With Next Steps in Writing
The conference is not over when you stand up. It is over when the next steps are written down and agreed. Too many files drift because everyone remembers the meeting differently. Before you leave the room, or before you sign off on a call, confirm the timeline out loud and capture it.
- What each side must produce, and by when.
- The date and purpose of the next appearance.
- Any interim arrangement that now governs, whether on consent or by direction.
- Who is drafting the endorsement or consent order, and when it will circulate.
Then get it into a document the same day, while it is fresh. A tidy paper trail is what turns a good conference into a binding step, and it saves you the argument three months later about what was actually agreed. If a consent order is coming out of it, walk through the paperwork trail for consent orders so nothing stalls at the registry. Keeping those deadlines and next appearances visible against the matter itself, rather than scattered across your inbox, is exactly the kind of thing a system like A1 CMS is meant to hold for you.
A case conference is one of the few moments in a family file where a judge, both counsel, and the parties are all in the same place at the same time with the express purpose of moving forward. Waste it and you have burned a scarce resource and a court date. Use it well and you can shave months off the file. The difference is not eloquence. It is a brief that narrows, a concession offered early, a specific ask with a date on it, and a written record of what comes next. Do those four things and you will walk out having actually moved the case, not just marked your attendance. For more on the run-up, our other family practice notes and the wider family and civil practice section go deeper on each step.
