Marital Dissolution

Michael Goldman's Approach to Divorce Cases:

Financial professionals involved in the divorce field are often required to combine financial, accounting, tax, and investigatory expertise together with an understanding of both the legal process and human nature.  Experienced practitioners realize that even though the fighting might be about "the numbers", it is usually goes much deeper than just the numbers.  A financial expert who does nothing other than drop a report full of numerical opinions on his client usually hasn't accomplished much more than further stirring the pot.

Divorce cases often twist and turn in unexpected directions.  One such case began as a business valuation of the family business, morphed into a forensics case when fraud in the business recordkeeping was uncovered, turned again into a dissipation case when the business-owning spouse bankrupted the business, and ended up back at valuation helping the judge determine the amount of dissipation damages.  Michael Goldman's experience and credentials in business valuation, forensic accounting, business management, and bankruptcy qualified him as an expert in every step of this case and provided succinct, credible testimony to aid in the judge's decision.

Many divorce cases revolve around case-specific fact patterns requiring both insight and functional expertise to put the puzzle pieces in their proper slots.  For example, goodwill in a personal - injury law practice was determined to be primarily personal goodwill when exhaustive analysis of four year's worth of case files revealed that 28% of the clients called within 24 hours of their accident, and 68% called within the first week.  On the other hand, the value of a very successful workers compensation law firm was determined to be almost all practice goodwill when it was noted that unions referred almost all of the firm's cases, and numerous union stewards had testified in an unrelated corruption case that they had no personal involvement or relationship with any of the partners of the law firm being valued.

A financial professional assisting in divorce cases should be able to do all of the following:

• Prepare credible and well-supported business valuations that identify and quantify the driving forces of the subject business' underlying value
• Investigate for unreported income and hidden assets, including life-style audits and forensic reviews of privately held businesses
• Assist in resolving other Support and equitable distribution issues
• Assist in the preparation of interrogatories, depositions, and cross-examination
• Be deposed and testify at trial

Michael Goldman has repeatedly demonstrated the ability to do all of these well.

A Leader in the Field:

Michael Goldman has been published in Aspen Law's Valuing Professional Practices and Licenses, the Illinois Divorce Digest, The Value Examiner, The Corporate Counselor, Westlaw's Strategic Alternatives for Distressed Businesses, the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners' Fraud Casebook, and the American Bankruptcy Institute's Commercial Fraud Manual.  His articles have been used in national training courses and the graduate level course he teaches consistently earns high evaluations from students.

Michael Goldman has been a member of the Editorial Board of The Value Examiner since June, 2008.  In January 2012 he was appointed Chairman of the Editorial Board.  He is also a Leader on the American Bankruptcy Institute's Fraud Task Force.

Links for Fraud, Valuation, and other Divorce topics

Michael Goldman's Forensic Accounting and Valuation Cases