Page 25 - Family Law Services

matters in family law, often taught solely by or with the assistance of CPAs. Practitioners should also re-
fer to their respective state societies for local information on CPE in family law.

Finally, a number of states allow CPAs to become nonattorney members of the family law sections of
their state bars. Such membership allows CPAs to become familiar with new family law concerning fi-
nancial matters, as well as interact with the family law attorneys.

Timing

Family law courts across the United States have significantly improved their efficiency by instituting
timetables for each case. In a number of jurisdictions, those timetables are called case management or-
ders or docket control orders. Each state has its own term for this scheduling order.

Those timetables can often have a significant impact on the CPA's work. One of the first items in the
timetable is the date on which discovery requests are due to be submitted to the opposing party. The
CPA can alleviate many problems during the engagement by ensuring that the proper documents and in-
formation are requested at the onset.

Once documents are produced in response to a request, the next step for the CPA is to review the availa-
ble documents and information. It is important that the CPA review these records as soon as they are
produced and alert the attorney(s) if the production is incorrect, incomplete, or not forthcoming at all.

The next issue is the timing of opinions during discovery. Those opinions may be issued orally during a
deposition or in writing. Local rules govern the due dates of depositions, reports, or both. Such due dates
may sometimes be waived or changed, although the permission of the attorneys or the court may be re-
quired.

The final timing issue is that of trial preparation. As previously explained, a large majority of cases set-
tle before trial. However, there are cases in which the CPA must go before the trier of fact to testify to
opinions and findings. In those instances, significant time can elapse between the completion of the re-
port by the expert and the trial date, and the CPA and the attorney may need to become reacquainted
with the case, its facts, and relevant opinions. Also, depending on the jurisdiction, the CPA may be re-
quired to amend or supplement a previously completed report for trial. CPAs, like their attorney coun-
terparts, should consider spending time on trial preparation.

Staffing

Many of the CPAs who perform family law work are sole practitioners or firms with small staffs. Sole
practitioners who choose not to add personnel must carefully consider whether to accept a family law
engagement, especially those that may require the work of one or more staff members with varying lev-
els of expertise.

The CPA should not accept an engagement for which the member or his or her firm does not have suffi-
cient, knowledgeable staff available. By the same token, a CPA should not accept an engagement if he
or she, or his or her firm, may not be able to meet either the various timing deadlines or level of exper-
tise required to complete a particular engagement.

Engagements requiring services by more than one person present another danger, namely, the dilemma
of whether the testifying expert is sufficiently familiar with the content of work done by others who will
not be testifying.

© 2020 Association of International Certified Professional Accountants 23