Berkeley Research Group

     We had the amazing opportunity to hear from forensic accountants working for the Berkeley Research Group, a leading consulting and globe expert services firm that provides independent expert testimony.  Jeff Shaw and Matt Babcock came to us and gave us the best presentation yet for forensic accounting.  The walked us through the “Life as a Forensic Accountant.”  They started off by quickly going over the definition of forensic accounting, evidence gathered suitable for use in the court of law.  They gave us interesting statistics showing the market share of the forensic accounting field.  The Big four have their own forensic accounting branches that have about 35 percent of the market share, but the majority is held by small firms.  This is truly a unique kind of accounting, where you could be getting just as much action in a small firm as in the big four, it all just depends on the kind of connections that your firm has to lawyers and other clients.

     Some of the cases that Jeff and Matt had worked on were unique.  They worked on valuation cases for businesses.  One example is the half of the business that Anna Nicole Smith inherited when her husband died.  Other cases dealt with Profit Lost calculations for a construction company, Medical joint venture issues, fraud investigations at local banks, and Asset Tracing.  On the Asset tracing case they were hired by a royal family to go and categorize all of the assets that the prince had.  The kept tabs on and tracked everything from huge 747 planes to the last diamond studded tooth brush.
     If you are interested in becoming a forensic accountant, there are a few skills that you should develop now.  There was a study done where attorneys, academics, and other forensic accountants were asked what skills they thought were most important for a forensic accountant to have.  A few of these skills are analytical thinking, detail oriented, ethical, responsive, insightful, professionally skeptical, inquisitive, persistent, and effective oral/written communication.

     The work is never very constant; it just depends on how many cases your firm has to deal with.  Sometimes you could be working less than 20 hours a week and others you could be working as much as 70 or more.  Jeff told us that on average he has probably worked about 45 hours a week.  There are exciting times where you are out in the field tracking assets and other times when you are shifting through a bunch of e-mails to find out what you need to know to make a solid case.  It mostly depends on the cases and clients you have.  One thing that is different from working for the FBI is that your clients and the people you are finding evidence on most likely do not have ties with organized crime, so you will not be getting shot at.  Matt did tell us of one case a friend of his worked on where the mafia did come into the picture, but that was only one case.