In the Hot Seat With Our Testifying Experts:
Kevin Marold, CPA, ABV, CFE, CFF
What are surprising things you’ve uncovered in a financial investigation?
One piece of information, that needle in the haystack can really make or break a case.
We were defending a lost profits claim and the plaintiff’s analysis had failed to remove millions of dollars of one-time income from COVID relief. And without that income, the business was not profitable.
So the case basically got dismissed after we identified that the opposing expert inappropriately included one-time COVID relief in their lost profits analysis.
So it’s amazing to me how one piece of information can bring down a house of cards.
How has AI enhanced what you’re able to deliver as a financial expert?
AI I look at as augmented intelligence. It just helps us do what we’re already doing, better.
AI is enabling us to get our hands around massive sets of documents, complex sets of documents of all different kinds in a much quicker, more in-depth way and connecting those pieces of evidence with the legal claims and with the elements that we need to support or refute a lost profits claim, an embezzlement claim, any sort of financial analysis.
Ultimately, it gets the attorney’s insights more quickly to what is on record and how that is going to support or refute the legal claims out there and where they stand with their case on the financial evidence.
What’s a specific case example of how you’ve used AI that was groundbreaking?
One recent example involves a lost profits case. We were defending an insurance company against a company that had a fire and was claiming substantial lost profits.
We received an enormous production, 30,000 documents of emails with attachments and working with AI allowed us to extract the attachments from those emails and mine the data.
Once we got all of the data from those 30,000 documents, we were able to quickly hone in on the key documents and flagging those key documents for our review.
From there, we developed a cohesive timeline that demonstrated the plaintiff was in very poor financial condition prior to their fire and that the fire was not the immediate cause of their financial deterioration and that in fact, it appeared the company was likely going bankrupt prior to the fire.
Our analysis and the data extraction ultimately supported the attorney with his posture going into mediation. He knew that he had a much stronger case given the analysis we did and the communication we provided with him during that analysis that if this case couldn’t settle at mediation, he had really, really strong evidence going into trial that would demonstrate the fire did not cause the company to go bankrupt.
What do litigators need from a financial expert that goes beyond a damages calculation?
A litigator needs an expert who can communicate and strategize.
The damages calculation is one puzzle piece in the whole puzzle. It is not our only deliverable and the only way that we can add value.
We support litigators from the very beginning when they have a claim to size up their claim, to understand what evidence will support that claim and what weaknesses might underlie the evidence supporting that claim.
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Kevin Marold, CPA, ABV, CFE, CFF is dedicated to the pursuit of justice. He brings close to two decades of professional accounting experience and strong technical acumen to each case, with a background serving in audit at global accounting firms and in-house with Nike.
Kevin’s collective experience makes him a valued expert on forensic accounting investigations and damages analysis for litigation and business valuation. He works with commercial litigators, DOJ lawyers, family law attorneys and corporations to solve financial puzzles that help resolve disputes and testifies in support of his opinions.
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