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Discovery is all about the financial
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issues in New York we don’t have
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Discovery for custody issues now I know
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that’s not true across the country but
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in New York which is where I practice
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there is no Discovery for for custody
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and we’ll talk about that in a second
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but there is definitely Discovery for
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financial issues so what does that mean
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it means first of all you would normally
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exchange what’s called statements of net
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worth they’re sworn to you put all of
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your expenses and you usually use the
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year prior to figure out what your
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expenses are per category so there’ll be
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all sorts of categories your rent or
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your mortgage your H your taxes um
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vacations clothing food groceries dining
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out your children’s extracurricular
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activities educational expenses all of
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that goes in the beginning of the net
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worth statement and then you’re going to
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move on to the assets and the
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liabilities and you’ll then have what’s
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called a sworn statement of net worth
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those are exchanged that is the
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beginning of the discovery process now
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you have the framework for what are the
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assets and the liabilities hopefully now
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sometimes your spouse may not actually
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put down all of the assets and the
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liabilities and they may not accurately
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report what the expenses are perhaps
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they think if they don’t accurate
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accurately report the expenses they may
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pay less support or perhaps all of the
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assets and liabilities aren’t there
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because they made a mistake an honest
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mistake or perhaps they deliberately
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didn’t put these these assets and
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liabilities down because they just
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didn’t want you to know about them and
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so now here comes the difficult part
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this is the part where you’re actually
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sending out what are called Discovery
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demands now demand is a harsh word but
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that’s what they’re called they are
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demands for certain documents and you’re
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going to be looking at credit cards
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statements and bank statements and
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perhaps other documents if there’s a
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business involved you may be looking at
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General ledgers and you may be looking
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at loans that were taken for the
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business and you may get financial
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statements that have been offered to
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Banks and other entities and you’re
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going to do a very thorough look at the
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tax returns both business and personal
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and this is when all of this discovery
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comes in then you’re going to see what’s
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missing from the discovery is the
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Discovery deficient
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and that’s very important because you
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need to know if the discovery is
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deficient have things been left out are
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there years left out are there credit
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card statements left out are you seeing
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a payment for example to American
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Express from the checking account but
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there’s no American Express statements
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being shown to you that is a red flag is
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something on the net worth statement but
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you’re not getting the documentation
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from it for it is something being
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transferred to another account but you
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don’t have that account information is
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something listed on the schedule in the
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tax return are there accounts showing
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dividends or distributions but they’re
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not on the net worth statement and you
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have no documentation for it you’re then
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going to send what’s called a deficiency
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notice as to what you believe is
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deficient from your discovery that
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you’ve just received pursuant to your
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Discovery demand and then you’re going
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to probably go to the next step and that
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is taking a deposition which is asking
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questions under oath of the other part
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party and that is very important it’s
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important to understand what the assets
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and the liabilities are and sometimes
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the assets and the liabilities are
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complex there may be for example hedge
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funds perhaps there’s restricted stock
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units perhaps you need to know what the
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vesting schedule is for those restricted
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stock units maybe there’s bonuses
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involved in compensation perhaps there’s
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a business and you have questions about
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the general ledger or how people are
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being paid or why they’re being paid
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certain amounts so this is the opp
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opportunity to ask all of those
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questions and you may work with an
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expert actually a forensic accounting
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firm that may help you formulate some of
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those questions or real estate experts
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or valuators of software that someone
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may own this is all part of Discovery
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and it’s a process and it’s important
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that you go through that process