Family Law

How to Use Financial Experts More Effectively

By Ben Stevens

If you intend to use a financial expert in your Family Court case, you should consider the following five most important aspects:

1. Find the best your case can afford.  Usually the cost differential between a pedestrian expert and a very good one is not that great; however, the quality the very good expert brings is far superior. Not only is such an expert more knowledgeable of the substantive area of the analysis but has the savvy and experience to anticipate issues and knows how to handle depositions, the courtroom and opposing counsel.
2. Make sure the person you choose really has the expertise in the area and issue addressed.  'Puffery' may be an acceptable salesperson's practice but when used by a potential expert is a loud warning signal to move on to another candidate.  Litigation is too serious a business to bring in neophytes or charlatans who may have expertise of sorts in an area but not the exact area in which you need help.
3. Retain the expert as early as possible in the process. Let the expert 'learn' the case with you and help you develop theories and approaches that make sense. This involvement gives your expert ample opportunity to have in-depth understanding of the case, its nuances, the opposing expert as well as the opposing counsel.
4. Use your expert to analyze the opposing expert's findings.  Engage your expert to identify the other's weaknesses such as inappropriate assumptions, faulty logic, irrelevant data, antiquated and obsolete approaches, failure to learn and understand new trends and techniques and the like.
5. If possible, hire another expert as a consultant to review your testifying expert's work to try to make it as error free as possible.  With another set of trained 'eyes' overlooking the work there is much greater likelihood that the testifying expert's work will withstand the adversarial scrutiny. It is natural that the author of such a report will be more careful knowing that a peer is going to carefully check each calculation, assumption and word.

Source:  "How to Use Financial Experts More Effectively or How to Avoid CPA Rage" by Carlton R. Marcyan, JD/CPA/CFP, published in the AICPA Corner (membership required).

Full post as published by SC Family Law Blog on September 30, 2009 (boomark / email).