Forensic Accountant & Business Valuation Expert for Maine Matters

Working With Out-of-State Counsel

Joey Friedman, CPA, P.A. is a litigation-focused forensic accounting and business valuation firm engaged by counsel in Maine matters. The firm is based in Florida and works nationwide, handling records-based analysis remotely and traveling for deposition and trial testimony as a matter requires. Mr. Friedman has testified in state, federal and foreign courts, for plaintiffs and defendants, in civil, criminal and marital proceedings. The firm does not prepare income tax returns and does not provide tax planning services.

Divorce in Maine is heard in the District Court. Federal matters are heard in the District of Maine. Mr. Friedman is regularly engaged in matters in states across the United States, as well as in international matters, and the firm accepts Maine engagements in state and federal proceedings alike.

Retaining a forensic accountant from outside the state is common in financial disputes, and in some matters it is preferred:

• Conflict distance. An out-of-state expert is less likely to have prior or ongoing relationships with the parties, their businesses, their banks or their other advisors.
• Records-based work travels. Appreciation and tracing analysis are performed on documents and data. The location of the analyst does not change what the records show.
• Independence is visible. Where the parties move in the same local professional circles, distance from those circles is easier to explain to a finder of fact.

The Three Things That Decide a Maine Case

The statute tells you exactly which growth is marital and which is not

Marital property is everything acquired after the marriage, with listed exceptions — gifts and inheritances, property received in exchange for premarital property, property acquired after a legal separation decree, property excluded by agreement, and the increase in value of non-marital property. Most states stop there and leave the rest to the courts. Maine keeps going and defines what “increase in value” means, in both directions.

Stays non-marital: appreciation resulting from market forces; and appreciation resulting from reinvested income and capital gain, unless one or both spouses had a substantial active role during the marriage in managing, preserving or improving the property.

Becomes marital: appreciation resulting from the investment of marital funds or property into the non-marital property; appreciation resulting from marital labour; and appreciation from reinvested income and capital gain where a spouse did have a substantial active role.

This is a decomposition problem, and it is exactly what forensic accounting is for. A portfolio that tripled has to be separated into what the market did, what contributions added, and what any active management produced. A premarital business that is worth far more has to be examined for how much of the difference came from the owner’s work during the marriage and how much from conditions that would have occurred anyway. A single before-and-after number answers none of this, and it is the answer most often offered.

“Substantial active role” is a question about conduct, evidenced by records

The phrase does a great deal of work, because it is what flips reinvested income and capital gain from excluded to divisible. It is not a question about whether an asset grew; it is a question about what the owner did.

The evidence for it is ordinary and obtainable: trading frequency and who directed it, whether an outside manager held discretion, time spent on a rental portfolio or a business, correspondence with advisors, board and management involvement, and whether decisions were made or merely received. A passively held index fund and a self-directed account traded weekly can show identical growth and fall on opposite sides of this line. Establishing which one a case involves is a documentary exercise, and it should be done before a position is taken rather than after.

Economic abuse is now a listed factor, and most of it is financial

Among the factors the court considers is economic abuse by a spouse, added by the Legislature in 2023 and defined in Maine law as causing or attempting to cause someone to be financially dependent by maintaining control over their financial resources. The definition is largely made up of things that leave a record: unauthorized or coerced use of credit or property, withholding access to money or credit cards, forbidding employment or attendance at school, stealing from or defrauding a person of money or assets, and exploiting their resources for personal gain.

That makes it a forensic question as much as a testimonial one. Accounts opened or used without authority, transfers out of a spouse’s own funds, credit taken in one name for another’s benefit, and business resources used personally all sit in statements, filings and ledgers. Establishing the pattern with documents is far stronger than describing it, and the same records also answer the separate question of what the conduct actually cost.

Personal versus enterprise goodwill

Where a business depends on one individual, part of its value may not transfer to a new owner. The firm calculates and separates the transferable value from the non-transferable value and documents the basis for each. This is a financial calculation, not a legal determination — how that split is treated is a matter for the court under Maine law.

Forensic Accounting and Litigation Support

Passive Versus Active Appreciation Analysis

Decomposing the growth of an account, property or business into market-driven appreciation, appreciation produced by marital funds invested into it, and appreciation produced by marital labour — the three categories Maine’s statute distinguishes by name.

Substantial-Active-Role Evidence

Assembling the record that shows whether a spouse actively managed, preserved or improved an asset — who directed decisions, whether discretion sat with an outside manager, and the time and involvement actually devoted — since that test is what moves reinvested income and gains into the marital estate.

Economic Abuse Documentation

Establishing from records the financial conduct the statute describes: unauthorized or coerced use of credit or property, withheld access to funds, assets taken or diverted, and resources exploited for one party’s benefit — together with what each cost.

Business Valuation Disputes

Valuation of closely held businesses for divorce, shareholder and partnership disputes and buyouts, including the normalization questions that decide most of these cases: owner compensation, discretionary expenses, related-party transactions and customer concentration.

Hidden Asset Tracing

Following money through business accounts, related entities and personal accounts to establish what exists and where it went — common in divorce and in partnership disputes where one side controlled the books.

Economic Damages and Lost Profits

Quantifying what was lost, on a method that survives cross-examination, and identifying where an opposing calculation departs from the records it claims to rest on.

Fraud and Embezzlement Investigations

Reconstruction of what happened from the underlying records — misappropriation, fictitious vendors, payroll schemes and diversion — documented so it can be presented to a court, a board or an insurer.

Rebuttal and Opposing-Expert Review

Review of an opposing expert’s report to identify method departures, unsupported assumptions and figures the underlying records do not support — in Maine, very often including whether appreciation was actually decomposed into the statutory categories or simply presented as a single change in value.

Deposition and Trial Testimony

Expert testimony in state, federal and foreign courts, in depositions, mediations, arbitrations including AAA, and jury and non-jury trials, for plaintiffs and defendants alike.

Frequently Asked Questions

I owned my investment account before the marriage and it has grown a lot. Is the growth divided?

It depends on what produced the growth. Appreciation from market forces stays non-marital. Appreciation caused by marital funds being invested into it, or by marital labour, becomes marital property. Appreciation from reinvested income and capital gains stays non-marital unless a spouse had a substantial active role in managing, preserving or improving the account.

What counts as a “substantial active role”?

The statute uses the phrase without listing examples, so it is established from the facts: who directed investment decisions, how actively the asset was managed, whether an outside manager held discretion, and how much time and involvement a spouse actually devoted. Two accounts with identical returns can fall on different sides of it.

I owned a business before we married and worked in it throughout. Does that matter?

Yes. Appreciation resulting from marital labour is not treated as excluded increase in value. How much of the growth is attributable to that work, as opposed to market conditions or invested capital, is the question the analysis has to answer.

We used joint money to renovate my premarital house. What happens to that?

Appreciation resulting from the investment of marital funds or property into non-marital property is not excluded. Separating that from market-driven appreciation is done from the records of what was spent, when, and what effect it had.

Does it matter whose name the asset is in?

Not for the presumption. All property acquired after the marriage and before a separation decree is presumed marital regardless of how title is held, and that presumption is overcome only by showing the property was acquired by one of the listed methods.

My spouse controlled all the money and ran up credit in my name. Is that relevant?

Economic abuse by a spouse is one of the factors the court considers. Maine defines it as causing financial dependence by maintaining control over a person’s financial resources, including unauthorized or coerced use of credit or property, withholding access to money, and taking or defrauding a person of assets. Much of that is provable from records.

Which court hears a divorce in Maine?

The District Court.

Can a Florida-based expert work on a Maine case?

Yes, and it is common. The analysis is performed on documents and data, which does not depend on the analyst’s location, and the firm travels for deposition and trial testimony as a matter requires.

What records are needed to start?

For an appreciation question, statements from the date of the marriage forward showing contributions, withdrawals, income, gains and transactions, plus any management or advisory agreements. For a premarital business, financial statements and tax returns across the period together with evidence of the owner’s role. For economic abuse, complete account and credit records including applications and authorizations. Transaction-level detail is what to request — annual summaries cannot separate market growth from contributions, which is the entire question in Maine.

What credentials should a financial expert in a Maine matter hold?

For matters that may reach a hearing, the relevant considerations are accounting credentials, experience with the specific analysis at issue, and a record of testifying. Mr. Friedman is a CPA accredited in Business Valuation (ABV) by the AICPA and a member of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners.

Discuss a Maine Matter

Joey Friedman is a CPA accredited in Business Valuation (ABV) by the AICPA, a member of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, with more than 25 years in accounting and forensic practice and an expert witness practice serving attorneys and litigants nationwide since 2014. To discuss whether the firm is the right fit for a matter — including scope, timing and whether an out-of-state expert suits the case — call 954-282-9615 or use the contact form. The firm accepts engagements in other states as well — see states served for how the analysis differs elsewhere.