How we work
The mechanics, stated before you ask
Most of what follows is the sort of thing counsel has to extract from an expert on a phone call. It is easier to publish it.
Conflicts, engagement, and the first conversation
Tell us the nature of the matter, the parties, the jurisdiction, the posture, and any dates already set. We run the conflict check and respond within one business day, whether or not the answer is yes. If we are not the right firm — because of a conflict, a capacity problem, or because the question is outside what we do — we will usually be able to point you to someone who is.
We cannot treat anything you send before an engagement letter is signed as confidential, so keep the first description general.
The most valuable thing we produce early is rarely a report. It is an oral assessment of what the records will and will not support, delivered before positions harden and before a number appears in a pleading. That conversation has closed more engagements than any document we have written, and it has also talked clients out of claims that would not have survived.
Which role you are retaining us in
- Consulting, not disclosed
- Analysis for counsel’s own use in assessing a claim, framing discovery, or preparing cross-examination, with no report and no testimony.
- Testifying expert
- An affirmative or rebuttal opinion, disclosed, with a report and deposition and trial testimony as required.
- Jointly retained
- Engaged by both parties on agreed terms, most often in family law and shareholder matters where a single valuation is more efficient than two.
- Court-appointed neutral
- We accept appointment as a neutral valuation expert, examiner, or accountant where the court or the parties prefer it.
The distinction between the first two matters more than it sounds and is worth settling at the outset rather than mid-case, because it affects what we produce and how we keep our file.
Fees, retainers, and estimates
For most matters, we bill hourly against a retainer. Rates are stated in the engagement letter and do not vary by the outcome or by which side retained us.
Before the work starts we give you a scoped estimate: what we will do, in what sequence, and what it should cost. Litigation being what it is, scope changes. When it does we tell you before the hours are incurred, not on the invoice. If the records turn out to be materially worse than represented, that conversation happens in the first week.
In litigation and expert engagements we do not accept contingent fees or any arrangement in which our compensation depends on the result. This is not only a matter of professional standards: an expert whose fee moves with the verdict has handed the other side its first line of cross-examination, and the opinion is worth less to you than it cost.
Standards, documentation, and surviving challenge
Our engagements are performed under the applicable professional and ethical standards.
Assumptions are stated rather than embedded in a spreadsheet. Figures are traced from the source document to the schedule to the conclusion, and any figure we could not trace is identified as such. Sensitivities are run on the inputs that matter to the conclusion. The workpapers are organized on the assumption that an opposing expert will read them.
Opinions in this field are excluded for a small number of recurring reasons: no stated methodology; a method not tied to the facts of the case; assumptions with no support in the record; and a damages theory that does not match the claim as pleaded. Each is addressed in how the work is scoped rather than defended after the fact.
Timing and availability
Report timing depends on scope and, more than anything else, on the quality and timing of the information we receive. A calculation is faster than a conclusion of value. A rebuttal of a report already in hand is faster than an affirmative opinion built from nothing. Where the accounting records have to be reconstructed before any analysis can rest on them, the work takes materially longer. We give you a schedule with the engagement estimate, and we tell you in the first week if the records will not support the one you need.
We take rush engagements and short-fuse rebuttals when we have the capacity to do them properly, and we decline them when we do not. Because a principal performs the analysis on every engagement, the constraint is real rather than a negotiating position.
Deposition and trial dates take precedence over everything else on our schedule once they are set.