Why You Should Consider Using a Financial Expert Witness in a Family Law Case

When you accept a family law case, there could be a need to have your client hire a financial expert witness. A financial expert witness can be useful in providing the following:

• Income and Expense Analysis
• Locate hidden assets
• Value a business
• Support calculations such as child support and alimony
• Tracing separate vs. marital property
• Assist with a client’s financial declaration and marital balance sheet

An expert witness will have the following characteristics:

• Independent and objective
• Clear and organized
• Experienced
• Ability to explain complex matters simply

At HHM CPAs, we can be that trusted party to assist your clients in their time of need. As a financial expert witness, we help courts understand complicated financial issues that affect marital dissolution decisions. Once hired, we would analyze several years of tax returns, bank statements, credit card statements, business records, investment accounts, retirement accounts, accounting software records, and real estate records. During our examination, we would anticipate several discussions with the attorney and client filling in any gaps and answering our questions. A good partnership allows the expert and attorney to communicate throughout the entire process so we do not perform additional work that is not necessary or will not help the attorney argue his or her case.

Analysis is time-intensive, and depending on the number of documents to be analyzed, the costs can be expensive. However, in high-asset or highly-contested cases, an expert’s work can heavily influence the outcome and possibly result in a larger sum being awarded to the client based on the expert’s report and testimony.

Once finished with our examination, we would prepare a report containing what documents we reviewed, any financial summaries, our methodology used, our calculations performed, our opinions and conclusions, and all supporting exhibits. If the case does not settle, we will assist in the testimonial phase. Our job during this phase would be to explain complex financial concepts in simple terms, walk through our calculations, provide our opinions and support, and respond to cross-examination.

If you are interested in learning more about the possible benefits of hiring a financial expert witness, feel free to call HHM CPAs at 423-756-7771.

‍