BVWire sat through several excellent sessions involving valuations for litigation purposes at the 2019 AICPA Forensic and Valuation Services Conference in Las Vegas. Here are a few good pieces of advice we picked up:

• With fewer cases going to trial, experts who want to preserve opportunities must get involved in the process early, even before a case is formally filed.
• Expert discovery is an increasingly important lynchpin for many family law cases because more cases than ever are settling as opposed to going to trial.
• Ask whether your deposition will be videotaped; having a visual record of your performance during the deposition can be a powerful tool for the opposing lawyer.
• Trusts and cryptocurrency are two areas defining the future of family law litigation; are trust assets part of the marital estate? As for cryptocurrencies, they represent just another asset, so all the typical discovery duties apply: find the asset, categorize it, and value it.
• Visuals (pictures, graphs) are often more effective in communicating a valuation concept than a lot of words.
• Given the high exclusion rates for financial experts (43% per a PwC study), it’s almost obligatory for attorneys to file a Daubert challenge.
• Google yourself! You need to know what’s “out there” that could be used to hurt your testimony.

More details will be in future BVWire issues, and more extensive coverage will be in the January 2020 issue of Business Valuation Update.