THE FAMILY BRIEF
The Family Brief is a monthly podcast from Modern Family Law created to help people prepare for family changes and start over with useful information and support.
Family life brings questions at every stage. Some appear during exciting moments, such as buying a home, becoming a parent, or considering adoption. Others come during difficult changes involving a relationship, finances, parenting, or the end of a marriage.
These questions rarely involve only legal or financial issues. They can also affect your relationships, mental health, daily routine, children, and plans for the future.
At Modern Family Law, our mission is to Help You Start Over. Sometimes starting over follows a divorce or separation. Other times, it means adjusting to a new parenting schedule, rebuilding financial stability, forming a family through adoption, or preparing for a different chapter of life.
That is why we created The Family Brief, a monthly podcast from Modern Family Law about the legal, financial, personal, and everyday issues that affect families throughout life.
The Family Brief is not a lecture or a sales pitch. It is a place for honest conversations with professionals who can answer common questions, discuss real-life situations, and share useful ideas. It is another way we help people understand their options, prepare for change, and begin building what comes next.
OVERVIEW
The Family Brief at a Glance
The Family Brief is a monthly podcast from Modern Family Law created to help people prepare for family changes and start over with useful information and support. Attorneys, therapists, financial professionals, parenting experts, and other specialists discuss relationships, parenting, money, homeownership, adoption, separation, divorce, and other major changes. Each episode offers helpful resources, professional perspectives, and questions listeners can use as they consider what comes next.
THE BOTTOM LINE
Key Takeaways
- The Family Brief supports Modern Family Law’s mission to Help You Start Over by sharing useful information about family changes and the decisions that often come with them.
- The podcast covers the legal, financial, personal, and everyday sides of family life.
- The podcast is for people at many stages of life, not only those involved in a family law matter.
- Guests include attorneys, therapists, financial professionals, parenting experts, and other specialists.
- Episodes explore common questions and real-life situations involving relationships, children, money, housing, adoption, separation, and more.
- New episodes are released monthly on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Modern Family Law’s Watch & Listen library.
REAL LIFE
A Family Podcast Built Around Real Life
Family life is about so much more than any one moment or challenge. It can mean starting a relationship, building a home, raising children, working through disagreements, planning for the future, or supporting someone you love. It can also mean adjusting to divorce, co-parenting, an empty nest, a new financial situation, or another unexpected change.
These experiences don’t happen in separate boxes. A decision about a home can affect a family’s finances. A change in a relationship can affect children, routines, and mental health. Becoming a parent can raise questions about money, work, childcare, and long-term planning.
The Family Brief makes room for those connections. Rather than focusing only on the law, the podcast looks at how family decisions affect daily life.
OUR WHY
Why We Created The Family Brief
People often have questions before they know whether they need a lawyer, therapist, financial advisor, parenting expert, or another professional.
They may wonder:
- How should we prepare financially before buying a home?
- What conversations should couples have before marriage?
- How can parents communicate better during a difficult period?
- What should a family know before beginning the adoption process?
- How could divorce affect a home, retirement account, or parenting schedule?
- How do couples adjust when their children leave home?
- Where can someone turn when the next step is not obvious?
Searching online may produce thousands of answers, but it doesn’t always help people understand how those answers connect to their lives.
Our mission at Modern Family Law is to help you turn a difficult family change into a workable beginning. That mission is not limited to what happens in a courtroom. Starting over may begin with understanding your finances, finding support for your children, learning how a legal process works, or simply hearing a conversation that helps you ask a better question.
We created The Family Brief to bring different kinds of professionals into those conversations. Listeners can hear useful perspectives, learn what questions to ask, and discover resources that may help them prepare for change and take the next step.
“We have the opportunity to connect with people who bring thoughtful perspectives and compelling experiences, and I love making those conversations accessible to our listeners,” said Tiffany Kahnen, co-host of The Family Brief and Partner and Chief of Staff at Modern Family Law.
“What makes hosting The Family Brief so rewarding is creating a space for meaningful conversation that feels like sitting down together on the sofa with a cup of coffee.”
Tiffany captures exactly what we want The Family Brief to feel like. These are discussions you would actually want to sit in on, not lectures, and each one should leave listeners with something they can use. That may be a question to consider, a topic to discuss with their family, or a resource that makes finding their footing feel a little less overwhelming.
THE FULL PICTURE
Conversations That Look at the Full Picture
Family decisions often involve more than one area of life. A divorce may require decisions about child custody, child support, and property division. It may also bring concerns about communication, grief, parenting, housing, and financial independence.
An adoption may involve legal requirements and paperwork, but families may also have questions about relationships, parenting, emotional support, and preparing their home.
Buying a house together can be exciting, but it may raise questions about ownership, budgeting, marriage, and what happens if circumstances change.
That’s why The Family Brief includes voices beyond family law. Depending on the topic, guests may include:
These guests discuss common questions and real-life situations from different points of view. Together, they help listeners see how legal, financial, personal, and family concerns may overlap.
EPISODE TOPICS
What Topics Does The Family Brief Cover?
The Family Brief explores the moments and decisions that can influence family life, including:
- Starting or strengthening a relationship
- Buying a home and managing money as a couple
- Becoming a parent and raising children
- Parenting, communication, and family routines
- Mental health and emotional well-being
- Adoption and changing family structures
- Divorce and legal separation
- Child custody, parenting plans, and co-parenting
- Child support, spousal support, and household finances
- Property division, homeownership, and retirement
- Financial planning during major family changes
- Empty nesting and other new chapters
- Relationships and life after divorce
Some episodes may focus on a legal question. Others may explore parenting, relationships, finances, or emotional health. Each subject is chosen because it affects the way families live, communicate, prepare, and care for one another.
WHO IT’S FOR
Who Should Listen to The Family Brief?
The Family Brief is for anyone who wants to learn more about the issues that affect families. And you don’t need to be involved in a legal matter or facing an immediate problem. The podcast can still be helpful if you’re:
- Starting a serious relationship
- Planning a wedding or a life together
- Buying a home with a partner
- Becoming a parent
- Working on communication in your relationship
- Raising children or addressing a parenting concern
- Considering adoption
- Helping your family prepare financially
- Adjusting to an empty nest
- Considering divorce or separation
- Working through custody, support, or co-parenting questions
- Supporting a friend or relative during a major life change
- Curious about the legal and financial decisions families commonly face
Some people may listen because they need answers now. Others may want to understand a topic before it becomes urgent. Both are good reasons to start.
LEARN YOUR WAY
A Place to Learn at Your Own Pace
Listening to a podcast doesn’t require you to make a major decision. It can simply be a way to learn, prepare, or hear a different perspective.
You can listen to The Family Brief while driving to work, walking the dog, folding laundry, or taking a quiet moment for yourself. Each episode gives you a chance to hear from professionals who understand the questions families ask.
We hope you leave each conversation knowing more than you did before. That may mean discovering a helpful resource, learning a question to ask, or understanding how one decision could affect another part of family life.
Those small steps matter. Beginning again rarely happens through one decision made all at once. It often begins with learning what your options are, knowing what to prepare, and finding the right support when you need it.
A podcast cannot provide advice based on your specific circumstances. When a legal, financial, parenting, relationship, or mental health concern requires individual attention, a qualified professional can help you look more closely at your situation.
Modern Family Law serves families in Colorado, California, Texas, Washington, and Georgia. If you have questions about divorce, custody, support, adoption, or another family law issue, a local family law attorney can explain the laws that apply in your state.
MORE RESOURCES
More Resources to Help You Take Control
The Family Brief is part of a larger purpose at Modern Family Law: to Help You Start Over.
We know that getting through a major family change can involve more than hiring an attorney. People may need help understanding possible costs, organizing information, preparing for conversations, or learning how a family law process could affect their children, finances, home, and daily life.
We cannot make every family law issue easy. We can, however, give people access to information, tools, and legal services that reduce friction, answer common questions, and make the process feel more manageable.
That same purpose led us to create:
- Attorney-reviewed calculators that help people estimate child support, legal fees, property division, and other possible costs before speaking with an attorney
- SimpleStart™, which offers a lower initial retainer for eligible clients who may not be able to pay a traditional retainer upfront
- Our Client Dashboard, which gives clients one central place to access information and stay connected with their legal team
- A local resource library, state-specific FAQs, videos, and other information that answers common family law questions
These resources serve different purposes, but each one supports the same mission. We want people facing a major family change to have useful answers, easier access to support, and fewer surprises as they begin again.
The Family Brief gives us another way to do that. By bringing attorneys and other professionals into honest, approachable conversations, we can help people learn, prepare, and start building what comes next, even if they are not ready to contact a lawyer.
WATCH & LISTEN
Listen to The Family Brief
New episodes of The Family Brief are released monthly. You can listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube or explore the complete Modern Family Law Watch & Listen library.
Whether you are preparing for a change, supporting someone you care about, or trying to understand your options, we hope each episode gives you something useful for the road ahead.
HELP YOU START OVER
Questions About a Family Law Matter?
If you have questions about a family law matter, contact Modern Family Law to schedule a consultation with a family law attorney in your state. Helping you begin again with answers and support is why we are here.
The Family Brief is presented by Modern Family Law for general informational and educational purposes only, does not constitute legal advice, and should not be relied upon as legal advice for your particular circumstances. Listening does not create an attorney-client relationship with Modern Family Law or its attorneys. Laws and legal outcomes vary by jurisdiction and the specific facts of each case. For advice about your situation, consult a qualified attorney.
