Eric Lee, Forensic Accountant for Grant Thornton

This last Thursday Eric Lee from Grant Thornton came and gave us a deeper look at forensic accounting and fraud. In case you were not able to come to both meetings about this subject, forensic accounting is the identification, gathering, and interpretation of financial information suitable for use in a court of law. Eric had spent time with the FBI and then made the change to a firm. He enjoyed his old job, kicking in doors, arresting people, infiltrating drug gangs and performing interrogations with the FBI. He told us that it was hard to pretend to be a dirt bag to get into a drug gang, and raise a family. He also enjoys that people are not trying to kill him daily, he also enjoys the opportunity he has to build up networking relations with law firms, go golfing with lawyers and other events, and giving back to the community with his career at Grant Thornton.

 

Eric explained to us that as a forensic accountant there are two main areas that you are involved in. Investigations are the first area. Subjects like fraud, embezzlement, financial statement fraud, foreign corrupt practices act, shadow investigations, and anti-corruption consulting fall under this category. Under the foreign corrupt practices act Eric has gone out to other countries to see if any companies that do business in the United States bribe officials in other governments to get preferential treatment. Eric has been all over the world looking at other companies where one of their employees had blown the whistle on the company. Shadow investigations are where auditors shadow investigators to make sure that the auditors have all the information they need to make a decision on whether the auditors want to issue an opinion or drop the client.

The second area is Dispute Services. This has a lot to do with coming up with numbers to present in a court case or for lawyers to know how much to sue for. Damage valuation, expert testimony, litigation consulting, neutral arbitration, and post-acquisition disputes are covered by dispute services. Attorneys frequently hire forensic accountants to find out what happened to the money, and then the accountants usually give testimony in court.

There are many ways that you can get into a forensic accounting career. Eric suggested that since we are already in the accounting field, that we can try to get on as many shadow investigations as possible when we are in a firm. We have exceptional resources available to us right now as well. We have Professor Albrecht and Zimblemann that would be happy to talk about fraud any time they are free, as well as a Fraud club that can also help you find out more.