Trust but Authenticate This 20th article in the Unimpeachable Neutrality series explores why and how valuation and forensic accounting experts may need to evolve toward a new standard: unimpeachable certainty. Neutrality, once the highest standard of expert credibility, must now be supplemented with verifiable authentication practices to ensure that expert conclusions are not built upon fabricated realities. Neutrality without authentication has become not a virtue, but a risk; a structural weakness that can be exploited. This evolution marks a pivotal moment for our profession. Those who remain static, clinging to an outdated conception of unimpeachability, will find themselves undermined not…
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My Testimonial Experience Prior to Taking the Witness Stand One unintended consequence of writing unimpeachably neutral expert reports is that often nobody wants to hear what you have left to say. After having spent nearly two years working as an expert witness, authoring an uncounted number of expert reports, subpoenas, discovery requests, deposition questions, and cross-examination questions, I had yet to testify in a single trial or deposition. Getting a chance to testify had become my Red Ryder, carbine action two-hundred shot range model air rifle. With each case that settled, I couldn’t help but to feel like the forensic…
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As the temperature drops and the holidays creep in, case after case either settles or, even better, is granted a three-month continuance. Now you finally have the time to take a long hard look at the lessons you have learned this year, lessons you have applied from years past, and start defining next year’s conquest(s), whatever they may be. This fourth article of the Unimpeachable Neutrality series discusses how the lessons learned help to define and conquer the next 365 days
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Practical Applications in Unimpeachable Neutrality Expert witnesses in the fields of forensic accounting, matrimonial litigation, and business valuation must possess a thorough understanding of the applicable standards, case law, evidentiary rules, and regulations specific to each engagement to effectively help the court understand the facts and evidence. The already daunting task of interpreting these rules becomes increasingly fleeting when those parameters act as moving targets whose relevance or obsolescence may be subject to change in an instant based upon legal decisions, newly promulgated standards, or pronouncements. This third article from the unimpeachable neutrality series, discusses 10 time tested and unimpeachable…