LeVine v. Platzer: Valuation of Intangible Assets Under New York Partnership Law Statute The valuation of an ownership interest in a law firm can be challenging because it will often include significant unknowns as of the valuation date. The existence of uncertainty is not a justification for assigning no value to such assets. The author discusses LeVine v. Platzer, which involves the valuation of a law fir ...

Of Fiduciary Duty in Financial Disputes Forensic accountants are frequently brought into litigated disputes to examine whether individuals in positions of trust, such as business partners, executives, or agents, have breached their fiduciary duties. While this article concerns legal issues, the author intends to express no legal conclusions and/or opinions. Forensic accountants should consult the counsel th ...

Are My Draft Reports and Notes Discoverable? The purpose of this article is to explain the author’s understanding of certain issues impacting the discoverability of documents of forensic accounting, economic damages, and business valuation expert witnesses. This article is not intended to provide legal opinions, advice, or conclusions. It merely reflects the author’s current understanding of certain legal i ...

In Litigation and Business Environments As digital interdependence and geopolitical fragmentation grow, ensuring data authenticity, security, and regulatory compliance is more crucial than ever. Trust in data has eroded due to the opaque nature of AI systems, varying regulatory regimes, and governance gaps, reinforcing a critical need for transparency and accountability. The authors of this article discuss ...

Business Valuation Standards and the Substance and Principles of USPAP In this 25th article of the Unimpeachable Neutrality series, the author wants to make a case that he believes is both technically accurate and practically necessary: the business valuation standards of NACVA, ASA, and the AICPA do not merely conform to the substance and principles of USPAP in a passive or derivative sense. They are built ...

Federal and State-by-State Guidelines that Expert Witnesses Should Know (Part II of II) Navigating the maze of discovery rules in economic damage cases can be daunting. Professionals often face a patchwork of regulations across jurisdictions. This two-part article provides an overview of key discovery rules applicable in federal courts and each of the 50 U.S. states. Read Part I here. In this second part of ...

Figuring Out if Your M365 Licensing is Ready for AI Microsoft Copilot is rapidly becoming one of the most talked-about AI tools in the workplace, but many organizations discover that enabling it is not as simple as flipping a switch. The biggest hurdle is often licensing. Different versions of Microsoft 365 include different capabilities, and not every plan supports Copilot. This article explains how to qui ...

When 409A Valuations Differ from Funding Rounds In early‑stage and growth‑stage companies, it is common, and often surprising to founders, when the per‑share price established in an IRC §409A valuation does not match the price investors paid in a recent financing round. This difference can feel counterintuitive, especially when the company has just completed a successful raise and the preferred share price ...

Federal and State-by-State Guidelines that Expert Witnesses Should Know (Part I of II) Navigating the maze of discovery rules in economic damage cases can be daunting. Professionals often face a patchwork of regulations across jurisdictions. This two-part article provides an overview of key discovery rules applicable in federal courts and each of the 50 U.S. states. Navigating the maze of discovery rules in ...

Overview of an Expert’s Testimony in a Precedent Setting Texas Court Case The author had the opportunity of being the economic expert for the plaintiff in the initial case in the Business Court of Texas Eighth Division. This assignment provided the author with an opportunity to argue the modern new business rule as the basis for the lost profits calculations prepared in connection with the case. It provided ...

A Process As valuation professionals, we sometimes serve dual roles. In this article, the author shares a step-by-step listing of his vetting process. This checklist is meant as his guide but is also used to help clients start the projection process. The guide is for anyone using a projection as a guide to a valuation analysis. Business valuators are typically provided with a client’s budget or financial pr ...

Turning Raw Data into Real-Time Insights with ChatGPT This article explains how professionals can use ChatGPT to create custom dashboards from virtually any dataset—without needing advanced programming skills. It walks through how AI can assist with structuring raw data, identifying key performance indicators, generating visualizations, and even producing dashboard-ready code that you can view immediately. ...

Deconstructing the Idea of the Risk-Free Rate To evaluate future risk factors, analysts should understand the composition of the risk-free rate and consider the data influencing U.S. Treasury Bond yields. This article analyzes the criteria for evaluating the risk-free rate for use in engagements involving business valuations and economic damages. The general notion of a “risk-free rate” is the return availa ...

Navigating Liquidity, Valuation, and Risk When exits slow down, everything else starts to feel tighter. That is where many sponsors are today. In this article, the authors discuss the reasons for the longer exits and ramifications. Private equity runs on exits. When exits slow down, everything else starts to feel tighter: fund timelines, liquidity planning, and even conversations with investors. That is whe ...

How a New Proposed Rule of Evidence Seeks to Admit AI Analysis and Supplant Experts On January 30, 2026, Anthropic released legal plugins for its Claude AI that automate contract review, compliance tracking, and legal analysis. Within three days, $285 billion in market value evaporated from legal software and publishing companies. This was not a correction. It was a signal. The AI companies are no longer co ...

The Foundation of Unassailable Authority When you sit in deposition or at trial, you can speak with absolute confidence about your methodology because it is not something you invented for this case. It is something you have applied in hundreds or thousands of cases. The best defense against aggressive cross-examination is not clever language or diplomatic positioning. It is methodological consistency applie ...

A Beginner’s Roadmap to the Technology Behind ChatGPT I also get asked about the technology behind AI and have wanted to create an easy-to-read guide on the topic. So, here it is! This guide serves as a foundational primer on modern AI, written for readers who want to understand the technology without needing a technical background. It walks through the major building blocks of today’s AI ecosystem, includi ...

Advice for Medical and Dental Professionals and Their Advisors This article walks readers through what really matters long before these professionals think about listing their practice for sale. Understanding the “why” behind each step, not just the “what”, is crucial. As one reads through, keep in mind that the information is generalized, not specific to a specific specialty area. It is strongly suggested ...

Why Financial Experts Get Excluded and How to Avoid It In this article, the authors describe at a high level the rules governing admissibility of expert testimony, discuss common pitfalls, and provide some tips for avoiding these pitfalls so that expert opinions can be admitted into evidence with maximum effect. Financial experts play a vital role in financial restructurings, delivering important insights i ...

A 10-Day Fraud Detection Sprint That Protects Business Value It is important to not only establish next steps but attempt to blur the line between fraud-driven forensic investigations and valuation to provide the connective tissue; explaining how they overlap resulting in misleading valuation calculations. In this article, the author shares a 10-day fraud detection “sprint” to identify the reliability of ea ...