Litigation Support: Why Does Your Legal Counsel Need the Help of a CPA

If you or your business is caught up in a legal dispute or arbitration involving partner or shareholder disputes, damages, loss of earnings or divorce cases, your legal counsel may ask a qualified Certified Public Accountant (CPA) to lend a helping hand.

Your legal counsel can hire a CPA as either an expert witness or as a consultant in a deposition, at a trial, or in arbitration.

If your legal counsel hires a CPA as an expert witness, one of the CPA’s goals will be to educate the court on a specific matter. No one in the courtroom knows that matter better than the CPA expert witness. As an expert witness, what the CPA has to say will play a very important role in the outcome of trial.

As a consultant in the case, the CPA will assist your legal team:

• Develop strategies
• Identify significant issues
• Find the strong and weak points of your case from the accounting perspective
• Advise your legal team on how the opposing expert might approach the issue.

To provide the litigation support services, the CPA will review all the documentation that relates to the case, including reports, financial data, analyses, meeting minutes, etc. If your CPA has any questions, be prepared to provide additional documentation to support your case.

Throughout the discovery, trial or arbitration process, a good litigation support CPA will:

• Adhere to authoritative sources
• Be aware of industry best practices
• Be consistent on the issue at play, now and in the past. Inconsistency on any matter is not a good idea, especially in a trial process.

A CPA will be able to provide you and your legal team with valuable litigation support if he or she is experienced in:

• Business valuations
• Internal control evaluations
• Tax law and regulations
• Financial analysis and modeling
• Application of statistical methods
• Forensic accounting

Oftentimes experts speak a language hard for the “rest of us” to understand. The CPA needs to communicate complex technical issues in a clear and easily understood language. Otherwise, all those excellent findings and strong evidence in your case will not have the desired impact on the jury and the judge. Other helpful skills include:

• Ability to reconstruct financial data
• Understand relevant legal issues

The expertise of the CPA is very important during the litigation support cases. In addition, a CPA with specific professional certifications and accreditations, such as Certified in Financial Forensics, Diplomate of the American College of Forensic Examination, Accredited in Business Valuation, or Certified Valuation Analyst, will instill greater confidence in your legal team, jury, and the judge. Make sure your legal team hires a competent CPA with appropriate accreditations and professional certifications who can indeed provide the services required in your case.