Financial disclosure and child support, prepared from the documents.
Familybrief sorts what a client sends, reconciles income across returns, slips and pay stubs, tracks disclosure on both sides, and calculates support. Every figure links to the page it came from.
Now selecting three Nova Scotia family law practices.
Documents
Clients send returns, slips, pay stubs, statements and receipts from a phone or a computer. Each one is identified, dated and filed against the right person and year.
Disclosure
What each party has provided and what is still outstanding, with the date of every request.
Income
Income reconciled across the T4, T5, pay stubs and notice of assessment. Anything that does not agree is flagged for review.
Special expenses
Each section 7 expense with its receipts, whether the other parent was consulted, and the reasons for the claim.
Support
The table amount, each parent's share of special expenses and the monthly total, calculated from the 2025 federal tables.
Order
Change one term and the order, its schedules, the offer letter and the calculation update together. Earlier offers stay side by side, and the draft exports to Word with tracked changes. It works without an internet connection.
Ask the file
Ask a question about the file and get the answer with the page it came from. If the file does not say, the answer says so.
Screens show a fictional matter.
The work it replaces
Work that every child support file involves, much of it by hand.
- Collecting
- Documents arrive in pieces, by email, photo and scan. Someone sorts them, names them and works out what is still missing.
- Proving income
- The figure on the Statement of Income has to agree with the return, the slips and the latest pay stubs. When it does not, the difference tends to surface late.
- Chasing disclosure
- Requests go out and partial answers come back. If it reaches a judge, you need to show exactly what was asked for, and when.
- Recalculating
- Each new pay stub, receipt or offer means re-entering figures in the calculator and correcting the draft to match.
- The final week
- Numbers change before a settlement conference, and the statement, the calculation and the order all have to be redone together.
The family courthouse on Devonshire Avenue, Halifax
A settlement conference, and a deal to find before the day ends.
The judge has suggested a way to settle. Counsel and client step into a small breakout room to work out whether it holds up, and what it means for each month that follows.
Every offer moves three numbers.
The monthly amount, the share of special expenses and the retroactive payment all shift together. After an hour of back and forth there are four versions on the notepad, two in the spreadsheet, and the calculator has been run again for each one. The phone in the room has a single bar of signal.
Their offer: $1,310 / mo, no retro
Ours: $1,520 / mo, $3,600 retro
Judge: table amt ~$1,150? retro over 12 mo?
s.7: daycare, before-school, speech. hockey ?
62 / 38 ... total $1,435?? check
One change updates the whole settlement.
Familybrief keeps the file's figures and the support tables on the laptop, so nothing depends on the signal. Change the amount or the retroactive terms, and the support, each parent's share of expenses and the wording of the order update at the same time.
The trade-off, side by side.
Their offer, your last offer and the current draft sit in one table, so you and your client can see what each concession costs before you go back in. A full calculation report is a click away, to check line by line against the calculator you already trust.
Leave the room with a draft order.
When the terms are agreed, the draft order already sets them out: the amount, the start date, the expense shares and the retroactive payment. Both sides can read it before they leave, so less is missed and less is left to settle by email afterwards.
Illustrations use a fictional matter.
How figures are handled
- What you get
- A Statement of Income and a Statement of Special or Extraordinary Expenses ready for your client to review and swear, the child support calculation, and a draft order and offer letter.
- Calculation
- Table amounts and shares are calculated by tested code from the federal child support tables. AI does not produce figures.
- Sources
- Every figure opens to the document and page it came from.
- Review
- A figure is not marked ready to swear until a person has confirmed it.
- Drafting
- Orders and letters are assembled from your own wording. Changes are shown as tracked changes.
- Your calculator
- Table amounts match any calculator that uses the federal tables. The pilot starts with a side-by-side check against the software you use now.
- Scope
- The first version covers child support and special expenses. Spousal support follows.
Security and privacy
Design commitments for the pilot. None is certified yet.
- Location
- Storage and AI processing run in Canadian data centres. The AI provider is a US company, so this is Canadian residency, not sovereignty.
- Training
- Client files are never used to train AI models.
- Separation
- Each firm's record is encrypted with its own key and kept apart from every other firm and matter.
- Originals
- Uploads are kept exactly as received, hashed and time-stamped.
- Access
- Multi-factor sign-in, and the firm decides who sees what. Familybrief staff have no access without a logged reason.
- Before client data
- A privacy-law review, an independent penetration test, a data agreement with each firm, and the Barristers' Society cloud checklist. A SOC 2 audit follows launch.
Pilot program
Three Nova Scotia family law practices. The pilot finishes the product around your wording, your documents and the way your practice works.
- Stage 1
A fictional file
Every step of the product, with no client data.
- Stage 2
A closed file, rebuilt
One of your past files with invented names and figures. Compare the hours with your own records.
- Stage 3
One live file
Only after independent privacy and security review, and with your client's consent.
$500 to join, credited to your first files. After the pilot, about $200 per file, with no subscription.
Questions
Does AI write my documents?
No. Drafts are assembled from your own templates and wording, with figures from tested code. Where AI suggests text it is marked, and nothing is filed without you.
Does it replace my support calculator?
That is the aim, in stages. Child support and special expenses come first, checked against your current calculator before you rely on them. Keep your calculator for spousal support until that is added.
Does it fit the Barristers' Society's guidance on AI?
The Society's guide of 15 July 2025 tells lawyers to "use private or controlled systems when available" and to understand how a tool stores and uses data. Familybrief is designed for that. You remain responsible for your work, as with any tool.
Who is behind it?
Familybrief is built in Halifax, Nova Scotia. It grew out of hands-on work alongside counsel on a family law file. The aim is to take the sorting, re-keying and recalculating off a lawyer's desk, so the hours go to advice and advocacy.