Hot tubbing with Judge Laro

Time to go “hot tubbing,” said U.S. Tax Court Judge David Laro to chuckles in the audience at a recent presentation, according to a report in the BVWire. No, he doesn’t mean to go soak in a warm bath. He’s talking about a very different method of giving expert testimony that he favors over traditional cross-examination. He sits at a table with the two experts flanking him and opens a conversation. Without fear of being attacked over their credibility, the experts feel free to have a collegial discussion about their work on the case. Judge Laro believes this technique can lead to a more equitable outcome.

Judge Laro, the author of the seminal Mandelbaum decision, made his remarks at a recent luncheon sponsored by the Business Valuation Association. More coverage appears in the June issue of Business Valuation Update. Judge Laro’s Mandelbaum v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo 1995-255 (1995), is available at BVLaw.