Why our valuations are defensible in court

Business Valuation for Litigation That Holds Up in Court

Not every valuation survives cross-examination. Ours are built to.

When litigation hinges on business value—whether in shareholder disputes, marital dissolution, economic damages, or tax matters—the court isn’t looking for spreadsheets. It’s looking for judgment.

At our firm, we don’t deliver valuations built on autopilot models or credentialed padding. We deliver valuation reports that are defensible—because they’re built the right way, from the ground up, in full alignment with Revenue Ruling 59-60, the IRS’s governing framework for fair market value.

Why Lawyers Choose Us

✅ No Boilerplate. No Assumptions. Just Facts.
Most valuation reports read like copy-paste jobs—filled with prewritten industry commentary, CAPM-based discount tables, or longwinded DCFs built on speculation. Courts are rejecting this kind of padded analysis. We don’t do predetermined templates. We do the footwork.

✅ Built for Litigation, Not Just Looks
Our valuations are engineered to withstand scrutiny from opposing counsel, financial experts, and the court itself. They’re structured to avoid Daubert challenges and grounded in case law—not wishful modeling. We know what triers of fact rely on—and what gets thrown out.

✅ RR 59-60 Compliant. And Proud of It.
We don’t default to frameworks pushed by credentialing bodies or valuation software. The IRS has been clear: “No formula can be devised that will be generally applicable.” We follow the law—not what’s trending in the valuation industry. Our methodology honors RR 59-60’s directive: fact-specific analysis, common sense, and informed judgment.

✅ We Price Businesses the Way Buyers Actually Do
Forget theoretical DCFs based on 5-year hockey-stick projections. Real buyers rely on normalized earnings, observable risks, and transferable assets. That’s how we value companies: based on what they would actually sell for in an open market tomorrow. Courts increasingly favor this approach. So do we.

What We Won’t Do—And Why That Matters

❌ We don’t blindly apply Build-Up or CAPM formulas
❌ We don’t base valuations on speculative growth scenarios
❌ We don’t outsource logic to databases or discount studies
❌ We don’t copy and paste industry content or recycle old templates

Because if a report reads like it was written by software, it probably was—and that doesn’t hold up in court.

Business Valuation Litigation

Courts don’t reward complexity for its own sake. What matters is clarity, defensibility, and alignment with established legal standards—especially Revenue Ruling 59-60. While many litigation valuations rely heavily on boilerplate models or assumptions disconnected from real-world transactions, the courts increasingly expect a fact-specific, judgment-driven approach. One that reflects normalized earnings, actual market participant behavior, and the business’s true operating structure—not industry averages or spreadsheets full of speculation.

This is why the method used matters just as much as the result. Courts have rejected otherwise “reasonable” valuations when they relied on unreliable projections (Magarik), ignored market data (Dell), or failed to reflect how real buyers operate. In litigation, every number, adjustment, and capitalization rate must be rooted in fact—and explained in a way a judge can follow.

A litigation-grade valuation reflects:

• Doing the footwork, such as normalization—not just plugging in industry averages
• Cap rates justified through risk analysis and market behavior, not pulled from tables
• Transparent assumptions, backed by evidence—not software defaults
• Methodologies aligned with court precedents—not third-party standards

Business Valuation Expert Witness

A valuation expert isn’t a narrator. They’re a translator between fact and value.

Being an expert witness in a valuation dispute isn’t about sounding authoritative. It’s about applying real-world logic, consistent methodology, and clear articulation—so that judges, attorneys, and even opposing experts can follow the analysis and understand exactly how and why the value holds up.

The most effective valuation witnesses aren’t those who cite the predetermined formulas. They’re the ones who bridge the gap between real-world market behavior and legal standards. They bring valuation to life—not as an academic exercise, but as a sequence of observable facts converted into market-grounded value.

✅ Grounds every conclusion in facts and observable market behavior—not theoretical formulas

✅ Does the real footwork—instead of padding reports with irrelevant fluff

✅ Justifies cap rates based on case-specific risk and market evidence—not standardized tables, as prohibited by RR 59-60

✅ Calls out opposing experts who substitute templates for real analysis—and makes it clear why their methods fall apart under scrutiny

Courts are increasingly rejecting experts who rely on padding, predetermined formulas, templates and industry averages over facts, honest footwork and RR59-60 compliance.

If the Value Will Be Argued in Court, Start With the Right Valuation

A business valuation isn’t a formality. In litigation, it’s either a weapon—or a liability. If you’re preparing for court, bring in a valuation firm that litigators trust and opposing experts respect.

Let’s talk. Your client’s outcome might depend on it.