LITIGATION SERVICES
Divorce - Personal Injury & Wrongful Death - Business Damages - Lost Profits - Breach of Contract - Forensic Accounting (Divorce and Fraud)
DIVORCE
A CPA can assist the client and the attorney in a Divorce engagement in many ways that should ultimately result in saving or obtaining money for the client and assisting the attorney so that the total professional fees are more cost effective for the client.
Garcia & Ortiz can assist in one or more of the following areas:
Investigative Accounting - Identification and discovery of complicated financial and tax information, as well as the careful analysis and interpretation of the data received from the opposing side.
Financial Affidavit - The attorney and CPA need to coordinate with the client to prepare/critique the most accurate financial affidavit for their clients. This document is often considered the most important to family law judges.
Lifestyle / Income Analysis - Determining the need for spousal support (and calculating the payor’s ability to pay) are crucial in most dissolution cases. Garcia & Ortiz has extensive experience preparing standard of living analyses and determining sources of income.
Depositions / Hearings / Trials - The expert witnesses of Garcia & Ortiz assist attorneys and testify on a frequent and regular basis.
Business Valuation - In many divorces, the largest asset is the value of a business that one of the spouses may own outright or have an ownership interest. It is important that the business be valued according to Fair Market Value standards and specifically address Florida divorce valuation issues.
Income Tax Planning - Federal income tax law affecting divorces is complex and not well understood by attorneys and accountants that do not practice in divorce proceedings. The attorney and CPA must work together in structuring payments, receipts of funds, and divisions of assets and liabilities in a manner that will create value for their clients.
Financial Planning - It is critical that income received or to be paid in the present and the future from earnings or investments is achievable and realistic. Likewise, expenses and investments must logically be met by the expected sources. It takes careful financial planning to achieve the agreed upon economic divisions of income, expenses, assets and liabilities.
PERSONAL INJURY & WRONGFUL DEATH
Personal injury or wrongful death litigation generally involves highly speculative damage claims. Backgrounds in accounting, economics, and statistics give the professionals of the Garcia & Ortiz Litigation Consulting Services Group, in coordination with legal counsel, broad experience in determining the economic facts behind allegations and in establishing reasonable dollar amounts as awards for damages.
We bring our objective skills to bear in four major areas:
(1) Permanent disability from industrial injuries
(2) Injuries from traffic accidents
(3) Personal injury from product liability, and (4) Injuries from alleged medical malpractice
BUSINESS DAMAGES - BREACH OF CONTRACT - LOST PROFITS
You should not have to pay a penalty just because a disastrous event interrupts normal business operations. Such events may include breach of contract; torts such as fraud, negligence or intentional interference with your business; as well as on-the-job accidents and natural disasters.
Garcia & Ortiz Litigation Consultants apply solid analytical techniques, in coordination with legal counsel, to develop or review damage claims in various industries and situations.
We first analyze and correlate the proximity of damages with the alleged wrongdoing and determine the degree of any cause-and-effect relationship we uncover. Then we focus on the additional requirements of reasonable certainty and foreseeability of damage you need for a lost-profits claim to succeed.
Every engagement has its unique aspects, but Garcia & Ortiz Litigation professionals usually find the following approach most effective:
First, we review historical performance:
Review your business operations before their interruption to verify profitability and identify operating constraints.Analyze and review documents for historical operating and capacity-utilization rates, including industry trends and seasonal/cyclical factors.
Next, we analyze results of operations after an interruptive event:
Establish the exact periods your business was interrupted, for every facet of your operation. Evaluate variable costs of production--primarily direct costs such as material and labor--not incurred as a result of your business interruption. Determine the expenses that you would naturally incur with an interruption, such as non-cancelable contracts for materials or services, and the cost of hiring new employees after startup. Allocate overhead costs of production among interrupted and uninterrupted business segments. Analyze the impact of other factors, such as diminished carrying costs and related investments. Review costs you incurred in providing alternate resources--such as backup facilities, equipment leasing, additional transportation expenses, or subcontracting elements of the manufacturing process.
Finally, we analyze competitive forces and other factors:
Analyze the market demand for your products based on past orders, industry norms, and changes in market demand or industry capacity. Calculate appropriate lost-profit margins, per industry pricing patterns and anticipated product mix. Identify economic value of improvements in quality, technology or enhanced capacity as a result of replacing damaged or destroyed property. Analyze for reasonableness and quantify any claim of permanently diminished market share due to the interruption. Analyze alleged consequential damages, such as bankruptcy or a forced sale of property due to income loss.
BREACH OF CONTRACT
Garcia & Ortiz Litigation Consultants, skilled in accounting, economics, and statistics, and backed by decades of experience in virtually every industry segment, are well-qualified to assist you, in coordination with legal counsel, in a variety of breach-of-contract matters, such as:
* Breach of Loan Commitments
* Lender Liability Claims
* Breach of Commercial Lease Contracts
* Breach of Real Estate Contracts
* Contractor and Construction Claims
* Breach of Employment Contracts
* Dealer or Franchise Terminations
* Breach by Buyer or Lessee of Goods
* Breach by Seller or Lessor of Goods
* Breach of Product or Service Warranties
* Breach by Customer or Supplier of Professional Services
* Breach by Licensor of Patents, Technology or Other Intellectual Property
* Failure to Supply Materials Pursuant to a Purchase Contract