| By :
Mark Jenner
There are many different types of dispute that are heard in courts of law. These can be civil disputes such as matrimonial battles between husband and wife or they can be criminal matters involving the defence and the prosecution. In between the two sides sit the judge, jury and independant expert witnesses. Although employed by either side, like the judge and jury the duty of the expert witness is solely to the court. An expert accounting witness is an accountant. He will have qualified as an accountant with a reputable body such as the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, and will therefore have the accreditation of Fellow of the Institute. However he may well be a full time expert, dealing only with cases that need expert technical accounting and business input in order to assist the court in making its decisions. It is possible that he does not service clients anymore who simply want their accounts preparing or their tax returns filing. Witnesses are normally called to court because they have some information that needs presenting to the court. They may have witnessed a murder, or seen a person steal some money. In court they will be asked to relate the facts of what they know or what they saw exactly to the court in response to questions from a barrister. They must only speak of facts that they know to be true. The expert witness is different because he is allowed to give his opinion. He is allowed to say what he (or she) thinks. The opinion must be based on supporting facts, therefore be a reasonable opinion. If the court is to accept the opinion of such an expert, potentially not knowing much about the subject matter themselves (because they are not accountants or businessmen) they must be convinced of the expert accountant's credibility, experience and reliability. In order to present a credible face to the court an expert accountant will do a number of things. He will first make sure that his work is of the highest quality by reporting diligently. This may mean getting second opinions from his peers to ensure that his work is sound. In the past an expert witness who was perhaps a partner in a firm of accountants would delegate the work to a junior member of staff. Accountancy and taxation work is carried out for clients in this fashion. However, when questioned in court many accountants were so unfamiliar with the reports they were supposed to have prepared that many were professionally embarrassed. These days the most respected expert accountants do most of the work themselves, only utilising junior staff for the very repetitive analysis work that can be checked and reconciled easily. In this way they should be fully conversant with all aspects of their report. The expert accountant will also obtain as many credentials as possible to back up his years of experience. Memberships of other professional bodies such as the Expert Witness Institute and the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners are credible supporting players to the Institute of Chartered Accountants. Additional qualifications can be obtained, such as those run by the Institute of Taxation or Master degrees from various universities. By developing a track history of experience alongside professional memberships and other accreditation, the expert accountant is able to protect himself from serious challenge by a barrister. Failing to do so can mean that a court will ignore any opinion presented in a report and potentially favor the other side's expert witness instead.
|
![[Valid RSS feed]](http://www.articlesbacklink.com/images/icon_Rss.png "XML Feed For RSS"){kind=icon}
Category Rss Feed
Print This Article
Add To Favorites
