Our forensic accounting experience focuses on all financial matters relating to family law issues including divorce, paternity, child support, modifications and mediations.
Services for family law matters can include:
- Asset tracing: usually bank and brokerage accounts
- Lifestyle and needs analysis: typically used in cases involving alimony
- Marital vs. nonmarital analysis: typically involving retirement accounts
- Equitable distribution: splitting of the marital assets and liabilities
- Child support calculations: based on factors including parental time sharing, insurance coverage for the child(ren), childcare expenses and income levels
- Alimony scenarios: determination of needs and ability to pay
- Comingling and transmutation: determination of whether the nature or character of an account lost its nonmarital status
- Passive vs. nonpassive appreciation: can help determine whether a premarital/nonmarital asset remains nonmarital throughout the marriage
- Assisting in the preparation of financial affidavits: accuracy is critical for this document, which is often the sole source of financial information during court hearings
- Discovery and mandatory disclosure: determining what additional information and documents are required to formulate opinions
- Income determination: usually involving smaller family and privately held businesses
- Business valuations: the determination of value for divorce differs from valuations done for other purposes
Family Law: Litigation
In litigation matters, we provide financial analysis, information and expert witness testimony at the direction of your attorney. Many times, this involves preparing for and attending mediation, temporary relief hearings, discovery hearings, settlement negotiations and trial.
Family Law: Collaborative
The collaborative process differs from litigation in that the parties work together to determine outcomes that best meet everyone’s needs instead of relying on a judge’s determination. In this model, each party works with a collaborative attorney, one mental health professional and one financial professional. Using this approach will significantly reduce costs compared to the litigation process.