Paula Hogan, a Milwaukee-based advisor long visible through presentations at FPA and NAPFA meetings, has laid out a model for financial planning that she argues is both more effective and more distinctive than conventional approaches.

In an article published this week in the Journal of Financial Planning, Hogan attempts to integrate well-settled ideas from economics with the realities of dealing with clients in the trenches of financial advisory practices.

"Economists tend to assume that clients come into a planner's office already knowing where their cash is being spent and able to specify concrete financial goals and the likely path of their earned income, and (icing on the cake) also to specify which expenses are lifetime needs and which are lifetime wants," Hogan writes. "In the trenches, it is clear that none of these assumptions are true."