A recent article, “Proving Lost Profits After Daubert: Five Questions Every Court Should Ask Before Admitting Expert Testimony” (Univ. Richmond Law Review, Jan. 2007), distinguishes between experts who offer “honest and accurate” lost profits testimony—and those who push the “envelope of the extreme.”

The article offers a comprehensive survey of current lost profits conclusions under the Daubert standard, noting the unlikely cases (libel, for example) where CPAs and credentialed business analysts have been permitted to testify—and where they haven’t:

In spite of the fact that many CPAs have qualified as business appraisers or lost profits analysts, the mere fact that a person has years of experience as a CPA does not automatically qualify them as an expert to predict future profits or value a business.

The overall goal of the article: to suggest a remedy for the “serious flaws” in the current system of expert selection.  If lawyers and appraisers “understand that experts who take unreasonable positions will have their testimony excluded,” these attorneys and experts will more often conform to the current standards.  For a copy of the article, click here.