Business valuation in Colorado divorce.

Why This Number Decides the Case

The largest asset is usually the hardest to value.

Bank accounts have statements. Houses have appraisals. A closely held business has none of that — its value depends on cash flow, adjustments, market assumptions, and expert judgment. Two credentialed appraisers can look at the same company and land millions of dollars apart, and both can defend their number with a straight face. That gap is where these cases are won or lost.

I built my practice around that gap. I hold an LL.M. in Taxation from Georgetown University, I've spent more than thirty years in courtrooms working with — and cross-examining — valuation experts and forensic accountants, and I've owned and operated businesses myself. I read financial statements the way most lawyers read case law.

The Colorado Framework

Equitable division — not automatic equal division.

Colorado divides marital property equitably under C.R.S. § 14-10-113. Equitable means what the court finds fair under the circumstances — not a presumed 50/50 split. A business or practice started during the marriage is generally marital property. A business owned before the marriage presents a more sophisticated question: the business itself may be separate property, but the increase in its value during the marriage is generally marital — and measuring that increase is precisely where valuation expertise matters most.

Timing matters too. Marital property is generally valued as of the decree — or the property-disposition hearing if it comes first — not the date the parties separated — which means a business that grows (or is quietly run down) during the case can change the outcome. Protecting the record on both value and conduct is part of the job.

How the Number Gets Built

Approaches, adjustments, and goodwill.

Appraisers use three broad approaches — income, market, and asset — but the real fight is inside the assumptions: how earnings are normalized, which perks and add-backs count, what a reasonable owner salary is, and how risk is priced. In professional practices, the battle is often over goodwill — how much of the value is the enterprise itself, and how much is personal to the owner.

There is also a sophisticated trap most lawyers miss: using the same stream of income twice — once to value the business, and again to set spousal maintenance. In the right case, spotting and properly presenting that double-dip issue can materially change the settlement.

Where These Cases Are Won

Preparation, discovery, and cross-examination.

Valuation cases are won in the details: complete discovery of the company's real financials, the right expert for the industry, deposition testimony that locks the other side's appraiser into their assumptions, and cross-examination that exposes the weak ones. I prepare every one of these cases as though it will be tried — because that preparation is what produces strong settlements, and because if trial comes, I'm entirely at home there.

Common Questions

What business owners ask me first.

Related: Business Owner Divorce  ·  High-Asset Divorce  ·  Property Division