A common source of friction in a family law case is a client and attorney who each assume the other has the final say on something. The ethical rules governing attorneys draw an actual line, even though it does not map neatly onto every real-life decision.
The client's decisions
The American Bar Association's Model Rule 1.2, adopted in some form in every state, states that a lawyer must abide by a client's decisions about the objectives of the representation. In a family law case, that generally includes whether to accept or reject a settlement offer, whether to pursue or abandon a particular claim, and whether to testify at a hearing or trial. These are framed as the client's decisions because they determine what the client is actually trying to achieve and what risks the client is willing to accept, which is something only the client can weigh.
The attorney's decisions
The same rule generally leaves the attorney in charge of the technical and tactical means of pursuing the client's objectives: which motions to file, how to phrase a discovery request, which witnesses to call in what order, and how to structure an argument to a judge. The premise is that these choices require legal training and courtroom experience the client is not expected to have, and that requiring client sign-off on every procedural choice would make representation unworkable.
Where the line gets blurry
Some decisions do not sort cleanly into either category. Whether to pursue an aggressive discovery strategy that will increase legal fees, whether to bring a specific allegation into a filing, or how hard to push on a particular parenting-time term often involve both a strategic judgment (the attorney's expertise) and a values judgment about cost, conflict, and what matters most (the client's to weigh in on). The formal rule does not resolve every one of these; it mainly guarantees that final authority over the case's goals sits with the client, and that an attorney is expected to keep the client informed enough, under Rule 1.4, to exercise that authority meaningfully.
What this means in practice
A client who is unsure whether a particular decision is theirs to make, or who disagrees with an attorney's proposed approach, is raising exactly the kind of question Rule 1.2 anticipates. A licensed attorney can explain, for a specific case and a specific decision, which side of that line it falls on and why.