DOSSIER · FAM

Family Financial Forensics

Finding, valuing, and dividing complex assets when a family case turns on money.

Brief stack

In this dossier

FAM-05 · 01

Finding Digital and Crypto Assets in a Family Case

8 MIN · FAM

Digital holdings are traceable more often than people assume, but the trail runs through tax filings, bank records, and party production rather than through the blockchain alone.

Property division is state law. No federal statute tells a divorce court how to classify or divide a crypto holding or a monetized account.
Federal tax filings are the cheapest starting point: the digital asset question and reported dispositions both create documented, sworn admissions.
The Stored Communications Act generally stops a civil subpoena from reaching message or email content held by a provider; production comes from the party.

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FAM-06 · 02

Valuing a Closely Held Business in Divorce

8 MIN · FAM

Two competent appraisers can value the same company months apart and land a third of the way from each other. The gap is almost never arithmetic; it is the legal assumptions the appraiser was told to use.

The standard of value — fair market value or fair value — is a legal question decided by state law, not a choice the appraiser makes.
Whether personal goodwill is marital property varies by state and often decides most of the value in a professional practice.
Marketability and minority discounts can move a number by a third; several states restrict or bar them in the divorce context.

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FAM-08 · 03

Interstate Support Enforcement Under UIFSA

8 MIN · FAM

A move across a state line does not create a second support order or a second chance to relitigate. UIFSA keeps one order controlling and gives it a route into the new state.

UIFSA has been adopted in every state as a condition of federal funding, producing one controlling order rather than competing orders in each state.
The issuing state keeps continuing exclusive jurisdiction while a party or the child still lives there, so another state may enforce but not modify.
An income-withholding order can be sent directly to an out-of-state employer without any filing in the employer's state.

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