The Unimpeachable Rebuttal 2.0

Pearls Clutched, Loaded, and Now AI-Augmented

The hired guns now have AI, and they are even more convincing at making the truth sound like a lie and a lie sound like the gospel. This 23^rd article in the Unimpeachable Neutrality Series revisits and revolutionizes the art of the rebuttal in an age where AI has become both sword and shield in the expert witness arena.

This 23^rd article in the Unimpeachable Neutrality Series revisits and revolutionizes the art of the rebuttal in an age where artificial intelligence (AI) has become both sword and shield in the expert witness arena.

Last month, I received what can only be described as a masterpiece of manufactured outrage; a 147-page rebuttal report that somehow managed to criticize my use of a discount rate while simultaneously employing the exact same rate in their alternative calculation. The kicker? The opposing expert’s AI had flagged this contradiction in their own report, but they submitted it anyway. After over 3,000 engagements, I thought I had seen every flavor of disingenuous rebuttal imaginable. I was wrong. The hired guns now have AI, and they are even more convincing at making the truth sound like a lie and a lie sound like the gospel.

I am an avid AI believer and use AI as a tool, not a substitute, to review my own reports before they ever reach opposing counsel’s desk. I have essentially hired a tireless, ruthlessly objective critic who works for pennies on the dollar and never takes coffee breaks. The same technology that enables the hired gun to produce verbose nonsense at scale has become my supplemental tool for crafting truly unimpeachable rebuttals.

The Evolution of the Rebuttal Wars

When I penned the original “Unimpeachable Rebuttal” article in 2021, AI was still largely a novelty in our profession, a shiny toy that promised much but delivered little. Fast forward to 2025, and the landscape has shifted dramatically. The psychopathic soliloquies I warned about then have morphed into algorithmic avalanches of criticism, where quantity attempts to substitute for quality.

Yet, as with most technological revolutions, the same tools that empower the disingenuous can be wielded even more effectively by those committed to unimpeachable neutrality. Think of AI as a microscope: in the hands of a hypochondriac, it reveals imaginary diseases everywhere; in the hands of a physician, it reveals truth.

My AI Rebuttal Arsenal: Confession of a Reformed Skeptic

I will admit it, I was initially skeptical of using AI for anything beyond basic calculations. Then I discovered something remarkable: when I continuously developed my competence in AI technologies, I found it excels at finding the very inconsistencies and weaknesses that opposing experts love to exploit. Now, exercising due professional care, before any report leaves my office, it undergoes what I call the “AI Inquisition.”

The Pre-Flight Check: AI as Devil’s Advocate

Before submitting any expert report, I feed it to multiple AI systems with a simple, transparent prompt: “You are a hostile opposing expert. Find every possible weakness, inconsistency, or point of attack in this report.” The results are humbling and invaluable, but I always ensure I can explain how the AI arrived at its conclusions.

The AI finds typos I have read past 17 times, identifies potential inconsistencies between footnotes and body text, and even flags instances where my methodology might appear to contradict standards I have cited. But here is the key: I never accept these findings blindly. Each AI-identified issue must pass through my professional judgment filter.

It is like having a brilliant but ruthlessly honest colleague who has no interest in sparing my feelings. In one recent case, the AI identified that I had used slightly different rounding conventions in two separate schedules, a minor inconsistency that would have provided unnecessary ammunition for opposing counsel. Fixed in five minutes, it saved me from five hours of deposition discomfort. But I validated the AI’s findings manually before making any changes.

The Deposition Preparation Revolution

Here is where AI truly shines as a supplement, not replacement: deposition preparation. I now use AI to generate the nastiest, most uncomfortable questions imaginable based on my own reports. I prompt it to think like the most aggressive opposing counsel, the most skeptical judge, and the most confused juror, sometimes all at once.

But, and this is crucial, I prepare to defend not just my conclusions but also how I used AI to reach them. Last week, while preparing for a deposition in a complex business valuation matter, I asked AI to generate questions that would challenge my normalizing adjustments. It produced 23 questions, three of which I had never considered despite having testified on similar matters hundreds of times. One question was so insightful that I revised my report before submission. Better to catch it myself than to be ambushed in deposition.

Crafting Cross-Examination Questions: The Tables Turned

When reviewing opposing expert reports, I employ AI as my reconnaissance team, but always guarding against its potential biases. I feed it the opposing report after redacting any confidential information and then prompt the large language model with instructions to identify internal inconsistencies, departures from cited standards, and mathematical errors. But here is the key: I never rely solely on AI’s findings. Instead, I integrate AI insights into a comprehensive analysis.

Recently, AI flagged that an opposing expert’s DCF model showed different terminal growth rates in the narrative versus the actual discount rate used in the damage calculation. This difference represented millions in value. The AI caught it in seconds; it would have taken me hours of manual review. But, exercising due professional care, I still verified the finding manually, understood its implications, and crafted the cross-examination questions myself.

The AI might find the needle, but only human expertise can explain why it matters. This is using AI as a tool, not a substitute.

The New Taxonomy of Disingenuous Rebuttals (Now AI-Powered and More Dangerous)

The four horsemen of horrible rebuttals I identified in 2021 have evolved. They have been fed steroids, given PhDs in obfuscation, and equipped with AI. Let me introduce you to their 2025 incarnations.

The All Problems No Solutions Rebuttal 2.0: The AI Avalanche

The hired gun now uses AI to generate hundreds of criticisms, knowing that the sheer volume will overwhelm. I recently received a rebuttal that contained 247 “concerns” about my report, everything from font choice (apparently Times New Roman suggests bias) to the philosophical implications of using a mid-year convention.

The Unimpeachable Response: I use AI to categorize and prioritize these criticisms, identifying which ones actually impact the conclusion versus those that are merely noise. In that 247-concern rebuttal, AI helped me identify that only seven criticisms affected the valuation, and of those, five were easily addressed with minor clarifications. The other 240? Window dressing designed to intimidate. But I document my AI usage transparently when explaining this in my sur-rebuttal.

The Glaring Error in Professional Judgment Rebuttal 2.0: The False Precision Attack

AI has given the hired gun the ability to calculate alternative scenarios with false precision. They will present 17 different discount rates calculated to six decimal places, implying that your rounded rate represents sloppy work.

The Unimpeachable Response: I now use AI to run sensitivity analyses on every key assumption, but I clearly acknowledge the limitations of these AI-generated scenarios. I present them honestly, showing that the difference between 12.2% and 12.7% discount rates changes the value by less than the cost of this litigation. True precision is not about decimal places; it is about understanding materiality and scope limitations.

The Complicated Cornucopia Rebuttal 2.0: The Algorithm Soup

The opposing expert now throws every conceivable AI model at the wall, machine learning predictions, Monte Carlo simulations with millions of iterations, neural network analyses, hoping something sticks or, more likely, that the complexity itself becomes the argument.

The Unimpeachable Response: I use what I call the “Kitchen Blender Test.” If you cannot explain your methodology using kitchen appliances as metaphors, you are probably overcomplicating things. AI should clarify, not confuse. When faced with algorithm soup, I use AI to translate the complexity back into simple English, then ask the fundamental question: Does this complexity change the answer in any material way?

The Inconsiderate Considerations Rebuttal 2.0: The Data Dump Deluge

Armed with AI’s ability to process vast datasets, opposing experts now claim you “failed to consider” thousands of potentially relevant data points. They will present an analysis of every comparable transaction since the Coolidge administration, implying your focused analysis was negligent.

The Unimpeachable Response: I use AI to document everything I considered and why I relied on specific data points. But more importantly, I use AI to help articulate the principle of relevance versus reverence. Just because we can analyze everything does not mean we should. As I told a judge recently, “Your Honor, I could consider the phases of the moon in my valuation, but that would not make it more accurate, just more astronomical.”

The Three Pillars of AI-Enhanced Rebuttal Excellence

After extensive experimentation (and more than a few humbling moments), I have identified three pillars that support an unimpeachable AI-enhanced rebuttal practice.

Pillar 1: Technological Humility

AI is like a brilliant intern who graduated summa cum laude but has never actually worked a case. Invaluable for certain tasks, dangerous if given too much autonomy. I use AI to find patterns, check math, and stress-test logic, but never to think for me. The expert must remain the decision-maker, using AI as a tool rather than a substitute for judgment.

Pillar 2: Transparent Augmentation

When I use AI in rebuttal preparation, I document it. Not because I have to (yet), but because transparency is the cornerstone of unimpeachable neutrality. If AI helped me identify an inconsistency in an opposing report, I note it. This is not weakness; it is strength. It shows I use every available tool to ensure accuracy while being prepared to explain exactly how those tools were deployed.

Pillar 3: The Human Override

Every AI-generated insight must pass through the filter of human judgment. AI might flag something as an error that is actually a legitimate methodological choice. It might miss subtle context that changes everything. The day we stop questioning AI’s conclusions is the day we stop being experts and start being technicians.

Practical War Stories from the AI Trenches

Let me share three recent examples where AI transformed my rebuttal practice.

The Case of the Phantom Normalizations

An AI review of my own draft report revealed that I had discussed normalizing adjustments in my narrative but had not clearly shown their mathematical impact in my schedules. The opposing expert would have had a field day. Five minutes of revision saved five hours of deposition dancing.

The Cross-Examination Coup

While preparing to cross-examine an opposing expert, I used AI to analyze their last dozen reports (all public records). The AI identified that they used different methodologies for nearly identical businesses depending on which side retained them. Armed with this pattern, the cross-examination wrote itself.

The Deposition That Never Happened

By using AI to brutally critique my own report and prepare for every conceivable question, I created a report so airtight that opposing counsel withdrew their expert rather than proceed to deposition. The AI had helped me identify and address every potential weakness before submission.

The Ethical Imperative: With Great Processing Power

Here is what keeps me up at night: AI’s ability to generate plausible-sounding but fundamentally flawed analyses. I have seen opposing experts use AI to create rebuttals that are grammatically perfect, mathematically precise, and completely wrong. They are using AI as a sophistry amplifier rather than a truth detector.

Our ethical obligation has not changed; we must remain unimpeachably neutral. But now we must be neutral in how we deploy these powerful tools. Using AI to find truth? Ethical. Using it to manufacture confusion? That is the hired gun’s playbook, not ours.

Looking Forward: The Arms Race and the High Ground

Make no mistake, we are in an arms race. The hired guns are getting better at using AI to obfuscate, complicate, and confuse. But here is the beautiful truth: AI is inherently better at finding truth than manufacturing fiction. It is better at identifying inconsistencies than creating them. It is better at simplifying complexity than generating it.

Those of us committed to unimpeachable neutrality have the natural advantage. We are using AI to do what it does best: process, verify, and identify. The hired guns are trying to use it to do what it does worst: deceive, complicate, and obscure.

Conclusion: Pearls Clutched, Lessons Learned, Future Secured

After nearly 3,000 engagements, I still occasionally clutch my pearls when reading a particularly creative piece of opposing fiction. But now, those pearls are wrapped around an AI-powered grip that helps me respond with unprecedented precision and clarity.

The unimpeachable rebuttal in 2025 is not just about being right, it is about using every available tool to ensure you are unassailably right. It is about turning AI from a weapon of mass confusion into an instrument of massive clarity. It is about maintaining our equilibrium while the technological ground shifts beneath our feet.

To my fellow experts committed to unimpeachable neutrality, embrace these tools, but do not be embraced by them. Use AI to amplify your expertise, not replace it. Let it check your work, challenge your assumptions, and strengthen your positions. But never forget, the “artificial” in AI is there for a reason. The intelligence that matters most, the judgment that carries weight in court, the credibility that wins cases, that is still wonderfully, necessarily, unimpeachably human.

Now if you will excuse me, I need to feed this article to my AI critic before submission. After all, even articles about unimpeachable neutrality should be unimpeachably neutral.

---

Zachary Meyers, CPA, CVA, is the managing member of C. Zachary Meyers, PLLC specializing in litigatory accounting and valuation services. He has been retained in over 2,900 matters since 2011, as a testifying expert, consulting expert, or neutral/court appointed expert qualified in forensic accounting, business valuation, pension valuation, and taxation. Mr. Meyers has held multiple influential roles on national and international standard setting bodies, where he has made significant contributions to the financial disciplines at the highest levels of the National Association of Certified Valuators and Analysts (NACVA), Global Association of Certified Valuators and Analysts (GACVA), and The Appraisal Foundation (TAF).

Mr. Meyers can be contacted at (304) 690-2619 or by e-mail to czmcpacva@czmeyers.com.