Financial Litigation and Expert Services
Financial Analysis and ExpertSupport for Complex Disputes
Bailes & Co. assists attorneys and their clients with business valuation, asset tracing, forensic accounting, economic-damages analysis, financial schedules, expert reports, and testimony in complex litigation.
Our professionals have completed hundreds of financial analyses, regularly assist with more than 100 divorce-litigation engagements each year, and have provided expert testimony in courts across Texas.
Serving attorneys and clients statewide from offices in Tyler and Dallas, Texas.
The stakes
Financial questions candecide the directionof a case.
Complex disputes often turn on financial questions that are difficult to answer from tax returns, bank statements, general ledgers, contracts, and discovery responses alone. Counsel may need to determine:
- What a business or ownership interest is worth
- Whether funds can be traced to a particular source
- How money moved among people, accounts, and entities
- Whether reported income reflects the underlying economic activity
- Whether financial records support or contradict a party’s position
- How alleged misconduct affected a business or individual
- What economic loss may be supported by the available evidence
- Whether an opposing expert’s assumptions and calculations are reasonable
- How complex findings can be explained clearly in mediation, deposition, or trial
Bailes & Co. helps convert large volumes of financial information into organized analysis that counsel can understand, test, use in negotiation, and present to the finder of fact.
What we do
Litigation services.
Financial analysis, valuation, forensic work, and expert support — engaged in whichever combination the matter requires.
A business valuation may be required when the value of a company, professional practice, partnership interest, or other closely held ownership interest is disputed. Engagements may involve:
- Divorce and marital-property matters
- Shareholder or partnership disputes
- Buyouts and business dissolutions
- Estate and trust litigation
- Breach-of-fiduciary-duty claims
- Bankruptcy
- Contract disputes
- Dissenting-owner matters
- Transactions that later become contested
- Claims involving economic loss or ownership value
The analysis may include historical financial performance, normalized earnings, owner compensation, related-party transactions, non-operating assets, company-specific risks, ownership rights, transfer restrictions, and relevant market or economic information. Explore Business Valuation services →
Asset tracing examines the source, movement, and disposition of funds or property. Depending on the matter, the work may involve:
- Bank and brokerage accounts
- Business transactions
- Real estate proceeds
- Inheritances
- Trust distributions
- Retirement accounts
- Investment activity
- Oil-and-gas or mineral income
- Transfers among related entities
- Separate and community property claims
- Payments to owners, family members, or related parties
Activity analysis may also reconstruct what occurred within an account, entity, or period when the existing records do not tell the full story.
Forensic accounting applies accounting, financial analysis, and investigative procedures to disputed or potentially irregular financial activity. The engagement may involve:
- Reconstructing incomplete records
- Analyzing unusual transactions
- Reviewing related-party payments
- Identifying inconsistencies among records
- Tracing funds through multiple accounts or entities
- Evaluating compensation, distributions, and personal expenses
- Reviewing alleged misappropriation
- Quantifying potential loss
- Assisting counsel with financial discovery
- Preparing schedules, reports, or testimony
Forensic accounting does not begin with a predetermined conclusion. The purpose is to identify and explain what the available evidence supports. Explore Forensic Accounting & Fraud Investigation →
Economic-damages analysis evaluates the financial effect of an alleged event, act, breach, injury, interruption, or loss. Depending on the claim, it may address lost profits, lost earnings, business interruption, breach of contract, business loss, insurance claims, product liability, personal injury, wrongful death, professional malpractice, oil-and-gas royalty disputes, shareholder and partnership claims, and other commercial damages. A credible damages analysis should identify:
- The claimed loss
- The applicable time period
- The financial records relied upon
- The assumptions used
- The method applied
- The relationship between the alleged event and the claimed result
- Avoided costs or mitigating factors
- Areas of uncertainty
- The difference between historical fact and projected performance
Counsel may need help evaluating another expert’s report before deposition, mediation, or trial. A review may examine:
- The scope of the opposing engagement
- Financial data used or omitted
- Assumptions and normalization adjustments
- Valuation methods and damage calculations
- Growth rates and discount rates
- Causation assumptions
- Mathematical consistency
- Treatment of contradictory evidence
- Support for the final opinion
Bailes & Co. may help develop deposition questions, identify areas requiring additional discovery, prepare rebuttal analysis, or provide testimony regarding the disputed financial issues.
Financial experts can add substantial value before the report-writing stage. Bailes & Co. may assist counsel with:
- Identifying financial records likely to be relevant
- Reviewing existing production for gaps
- Developing targeted document requests
- Organizing large financial productions
- Identifying entities, accounts, and transactions requiring follow-up
- Preparing financial questions for depositions
- Evaluating whether additional accounting records are needed
- Determining whether electronic accounting data would be useful
- Separating meaningful records from duplicative or irrelevant material
Attorneys often need someone who helps them understand what to request early enough to obtain it — not merely someone to write a report at the end.
The value of financial analysis depends partly on whether it can be explained clearly. When engaged, Bailes & Co. may assist with:
- Settlement analysis
- Mediation schedules
- Demonstrative financial exhibits
- Deposition preparation
- Review of opposing testimony
- Direct-examination preparation
- Cross-examination support
- Trial testimony
- Post-hearing or supplemental analysis when appropriate
Where we help
Matters we commonlyassist with.
Divorce matters involving a business, professional practice, trust, separate-property claim, mineral interest, complex investment activity, or disputed income can require more than traditional tax and accounting work. Bailes & Co. may assist with:
- Business valuation
- Separate and community property tracing
- Characterization-related financial schedules
- Analysis of business income
- Owner compensation
- Personal expenses paid by a business
- Distributions and retained earnings
- Lifestyle and spending analysis
- Reimbursement-related analysis
- Review of incomplete or inconsistent disclosures
- Opposing-expert review
- Mediation, deposition, and trial support
The firm completes more than 100 divorce-litigation engagements each year.
Disputes among business owners may involve alleged self-dealing, unequal compensation, excessive personal expenses, disputed distributions, minority-owner claims, related-party transactions, diversion of customers or opportunities, breach of fiduciary duty, buyout disagreements, stale or ambiguous buy-sell agreements, business dissolution, or disputed financial reporting.
Bailes & Co. may combine business valuation, forensic accounting, transaction analysis, damages calculations, and expert support to address the financial issues.
Trust and estate disputes may involve unclear account activity, contested transfers, alleged misuse of assets, ownership disagreements, fiduciary claims, or disputes among beneficiaries. Financial work may include:
- Asset tracing
- Account reconstruction
- Activity analysis
- Business valuation
- Trust-distribution analysis
- Review of fiduciary transactions
- Examination of related-party payments
- Analysis of estate-owned businesses
- Review of records supporting or contradicting allegations
- Preparation of schedules for mediation or trial
Commercial disputes may require analysis of what would have occurred absent the alleged breach and comparison with what actually occurred. The work may involve lost profits, lost revenue, incremental or avoided costs, business interruption, benefit-of-the-bargain calculations, out-of-pocket loss, historical performance, forecasts, customer or contract data, market conditions, mitigation, alternative causes, and reasonable certainty of the claimed amount.
The calculation should be tied to the facts, records, legal theory supplied by counsel, and appropriate financial methods.
When a party suspects that funds were diverted or financial authority was abused, the work may require detailed transaction analysis, including tracing disputed transfers, analyzing vendor payments, reviewing payroll or compensation, examining owner distributions, identifying personal expenses paid by an entity, reconstructing incomplete books, reviewing transfers among related entities, quantifying potential loss, preparing financial exhibits, and supporting counsel in discovery and testimony.
A financial irregularity or allegation is not the same as proven fraud, and the analysis remains neutral.
Oil-and-gas disputes may involve specialized records and industry relationships that are unfamiliar to a general accounting expert. Potential matters include:
- Royalty underpayment claims
- Joint-interest billing disputes
- Working-interest disputes
- Revenue-distribution issues
- Operator and non-operator accounting
- Well-level costs
- Related-party charges
- Ownership and payment histories
- Economic damages, business valuation, and asset tracing
These matters may require analysis of historical earnings, employment history, self-employment or business income, expected career trajectory, lost earning capacity, fringe benefits, work-life assumptions, taxes when legally relevant, mitigation, and present-value considerations.
The expert’s precise role should be defined with counsel, because some matters may require economists, vocational professionals, medical experts, or other specialists in addition to accounting analysis.
Financial analysis may be required to evaluate historical performance, solvency, transfers, business value, lost profits, creditor claims, ownership activity, related-party transactions, and financial records surrounding a disputed period. The exact scope depends on the legal issues and the professional role assigned by counsel.
Define the role early
Consulting expertor testifying expert?
Consulting Expert
Assists counsel behind the scenes and is not necessarily expected to provide testimony. The role may include:
- Helping counsel understand financial records
- Identifying discovery needs
- Analyzing possible claims or defenses
- Reviewing another expert’s report
- Assisting with deposition preparation
- Testing financial theories
- Preparing settlement schedules
- Advising on whether further expert work is warranted
Testifying Expert
Engaged to provide opinions or analysis that may be disclosed and presented. The role may include:
- Preparing an expert report
- Disclosing opinions and supporting information
- Sitting for deposition
- Assisting with demonstrative exhibits
- Providing hearing or trial testimony
- Responding to opposing expert analysis
- Explaining methods, assumptions, and conclusions under examination
The engagement letter should identify the expert’s role, scope, client, intended users, subject matter, deadlines, and anticipated deliverables. A professional should not drift from informal consultation into a testifying role without counsel and the expert clearly addressing the consequences.
Timing
When should counselengage a financialexpert?
Generally, before financial discovery is substantially complete. A later engagement may still help, but rushed timelines create avoidable risk.
Early engagement may allow the expert to:
- Identify missing records
- Recommend targeted financial requests
- Preserve useful electronic accounting data
- Understand the claims and defenses
- Develop a workable analytical framework
- Assess whether the existing records can support an opinion
- Identify potential conflicts
- Provide realistic timing and fee expectations
- Reduce duplicated work
- Avoid discovering critical gaps immediately before an expert deadline
The engagement
How a litigationengagement works.
Conflict Check
Before discussing substantive or confidential details, Bailes & Co. identifies the parties, counsel, entities, related individuals, and other names necessary to complete a conflict check. Use the Request a Conflict Check form below and avoid sending a full factual narrative until the check is complete.
Initial Case Discussion
After conflicts are cleared, the professional and counsel discuss the disputed financial issues, the requested role, claims and defenses, known records, procedural posture, expert and trial deadlines, expected deliverables, potential limitations, and other professionals involved.
Define the Scope and Professional Role
The engagement identifies the consulting or testifying role, the client and authorized contacts, the questions to be addressed, relevant entities and periods, expected work product, anticipated testimony, fee structure and retainer, information-security procedures, assumptions and limitations, and whether separate valuation or forensic scopes are required.
Identify Records and Discovery Needs
Bailes & Co. reviews the available production and helps determine what additional financial information may be needed — from tax returns and general ledgers to accounting-software data, ownership agreements, and trust records.
Organize and Analyze the Evidence
The firm analyzes the relevant records, reconciles information where possible, identifies inconsistencies, tests assumptions, and follows the financial evidence. Large matters may be analyzed in stages so counsel can evaluate early findings before expanding the scope.
Communicate Preliminary Issues
Meaningful questions and limitations are communicated as they arise — missing records, contradictory information, unresolved assumptions, alternative explanations, additional discovery needs, timing concerns, and changes in the apparent scope — rather than waiting until the final report.
Prepare Schedules, Analysis or Expert Report
The agreed deliverable may include consulting memoranda, financial schedules, valuation reports, tracing schedules, damage calculations, rebuttal analysis, expert reports, demonstrative exhibits, or oral consultation.
Support Mediation and Deposition
Before mediation or deposition, the firm may help counsel understand the key financial findings, disputed assumptions, opposing analysis, and areas of vulnerability.
Provide Testimony When Engaged
A testifying expert may explain the records reviewed, methods used, assumptions applied, opinions reached, and limitations of the work in deposition, hearing, arbitration, or trial.
Discovery guidance
What recordsmay be needed.
The records depend on the matter, but common categories include the following.
Business Records
- Federal and state tax returns
- Income statements and balance sheets
- General ledgers and trial balances
- Bank reconciliations
- Accounts-receivable and -payable aging
- Payroll registers
- Fixed-asset and debt schedules
- Budgets and forecasts
- Job-cost or project reports
- Customer and vendor information
- Ownership and governing documents
Personal Financial Records
- Personal tax returns
- Bank and brokerage statements
- Retirement-account statements
- Credit-card statements
- Loan applications
- Personal financial statements
- Real estate closing records
- Trust and estate documents
- Records of inheritances, gifts, or transfers
Electronic Accounting Information
- Detailed transaction histories
- Journal entries and audit trails
- User activity
- Vendor and customer records
- Account classifications
- Deleted or modified transactions
- Supporting attachments
- Date and source information
A backup or export from the accounting system may reveal information not visible in printed financial statements. When specialized digital forensics is necessary, the firm can coordinate with an appropriate provider.
Standard of work
What makes financialexpert work persuasive.
A persuasive expert does more than produce a large spreadsheet. The analysis should be:
Relevant
It addresses the financial questions that matter to the legal claims and defenses identified by counsel.
Supported
Material assumptions, adjustments, and conclusions are tied to evidence, accepted methods, professional judgment, or clearly disclosed limitations.
Reproducible
Another qualified professional should be able to understand how the calculations were performed.
Clear
The work can be explained to an attorney, mediator, judge, arbitrator, or jury without burying the conclusion under accounting jargon.
Independent
The expert’s role is to provide professional analysis, not to become an advocate disguised as an accountant.
Defensible
The professional is prepared to explain the records considered, methods selected, alternatives evaluated, and the weaknesses or limitations of the analysis.
The professional
Robert leads the firm’s litigation work. His experience spans business valuation, forensic accounting, economic-damages analysis, and expert testimony — and counsel works directly with the professional responsible for the analysis.
- Certified Public Accountant (CPA)
- Accredited in Business Valuation (ABV)
- Certified in Financial Forensics (CFF)
- Founder of Bailes & Co. (1991)
- Business valuation & forensic accounting
- Economic-damages analysis
- Divorce & commercial litigation
- Expert reports & testimony — Texas & Louisiana state and federal courts
Additional professionals participate where the engagement calls for it. Thom Eikner, CPA / ABV supports valuation and accounting analysis. Meet Thom Eikner.
Why counsel engages the firm
Built for attorney-referredfinancial matters.
Substantial litigation volume
More than 100 divorce-litigation engagements each year and hundreds of reports and analyses across the firm’s litigation work.
Valuation and forensic credentials
CPA, ABV, and CFF credentials directly relevant to business valuation, financial forensics, and contested financial analysis.
Family and commercial matters
Experience spanning divorce, business dissolutions, economic losses, contract claims, partner disputes, trust and estate disputes, bankruptcy, and oil-and-gas royalty disputes.
Direct access to the professionals
Counsel knows who is responsible for the analysis — and who will appear at deposition or trial.
Texas courtroom experience
The firm’s professionals have provided expert testimony across the Texas legal system.
Coordinated capabilities
Valuation, forensic accounting, tax analysis, asset tracing, and oil-and-gas accounting coordinated within one firm when the engagement calls for it.
Frequently asked questions
Litigation support, answered.
Attorney resource
Getting started witha financial expert.
Information to have ready
- Case style
- Complete party & entity list
- Counsel and known experts
- Court and jurisdiction
- Expert designation deadline
- Report deadline
- Mediation date
- Deposition dates
- Trial date
- Pleadings describing the financial claims
- Existing expert reports
- Description of available financial records
- Known record gaps
- Requested professional role & expected deliverables
Do not send before conflict clearance
- Privileged legal strategy
- Confidential client narratives
- Sensitive financial documents
- Protected health information
- Complete discovery productions
- Draft expert materials
Related services
Coordinated financialcapabilities.
Business Valuation
Independent valuation of disputed companies and ownership interests for divorce, disputes, estates, and transactions.
Learn more →Fraud Investigation
Forensic accounting, asset tracing, and loss quantification when financial activity is irregular or contested.
Learn more →Oil & Gas Accounting
Specialized industry accounting context for royalty, working-interest, and revenue-distribution disputes.
Learn more →Tax Planning
Evaluate the tax consequences of a settlement, transfer, or transaction connected to a dispute.
Learn more →Get started
Bring the financial issuesinto focus early.
Financial questions become harder and more expensive to resolve when records are identified late, discovery closes, or an expert deadline is already approaching. Start with a conflict check, or discuss the matter, role, records, and deadlines.
Or call (903) 561-5859. Bailes & Co. serves attorneys and clients across Texas from offices in Tyler and Dallas; the Dallas office is available by appointment.
Reviewed by Ryan Bailes · Last reviewed July 27, 2026