Elder Financial Exploitation Expert Witness and Litigation Consultant

Scope of the Forensic Inquiry

The first task is to define the disputed act and the legal question. The analysis is decision-specific and time-specific. It should address the following:

1. The act. Identify the transaction, document, transfer, designation, or other decision that is challenged, together with the legally relevant date or period.

2. The required abilities. Identify the mental functions required by the applicable legal standard and by the practical complexity of the act.

3. The person. Evaluate the person’s psychiatric, cognitive, neurological, medical, sensory, and functional condition at the relevant time.

4. The relationship. Examine dependency, trust, authority, access, isolation, and control of information, transportation, communication, or assistance.

5. The conduct. Identify what the alleged exploiter did. Opportunity, motive, or benefit is not a substitute for conduct.

6. Causation. Determine whether the conduct, in light of the person’s condition and circumstances, materially affected the disputed decision.

7. Alternative explanations. Test explanations consistent with a voluntary and lawful transaction, including longstanding intent, reconciliation, compensation, tax or estate planning, and independent advice.

A defensible opinion accounts for each element that is material to the asserted theory. When the evidence does not establish one of those elements, the limitation should be stated. It should not be supplied by assumption.

The Governing Legal Theory Must Be Defined First

Terms such as elder financial abuse, financial exploitation, vulnerable-adult exploitation, fiduciary abuse, coercion, and undue influence are not interchangeable across jurisdictions.

The applicable statute, protected-person definition, cause of action, burden of proof, required mental state, and operative legal standard should be identified by counsel. The forensic psychiatric analysis can then address the mental, functional, behavioral, and relationship questions relevant to that framework.

A careful analysis does not begin with the assumption that every suspicious transaction resulted from the same mechanism.

Four Distinct Theories That Should Not Be Collapsed

Theft or Fraud

The central issues may concern unauthorized taking, concealment, misrepresentation, false pretenses, forgery, diversion of assets, or use of property without lawful authority.

Those questions may require financial tracing, accounting, document examination, digital evidence, or proof of intent. Forensic psychiatry may assist when the alleged victim’s mental functioning, reliance, comprehension, or susceptibility is relevant, but it does not replace financial or document analysis.

Incapacity

The question is whether the person possessed the abilities required for the specific transaction at the relevant time.

Capacity is not a single global condition. The abilities needed to make a modest gift may differ from those needed to understand a complex investment, execute a power of attorney, transfer real property, modify an estate plan, or assume a substantial financial obligation.

A diagnosis, cognitive-screening score, later guardianship, or later finding of incapacity does not automatically establish incapacity at the operative time. The analysis must connect impairment to the actual functional demands of the disputed decision.

Undue Influence or Coercion

A person may retain decision-making capacity and nevertheless be vulnerable to manipulation, deception, dependency, isolation, fear, emotional pressure, or misuse of a relationship of trust.

The analysis should identify the alleged mechanism of influence: the conduct, the route by which it affected the person, the vulnerabilities that made the conduct effective, and the relationship between that conduct and the challenged decision.

Vulnerability alone does not establish undue influence. Suspicious benefit alone does not establish causation. A reliable opinion must connect the person’s condition, the other individual’s conduct, the decision environment, and the transaction.

Fiduciary Abuse

The dispute may concern misuse of a power of attorney, trust, guardianship, conservatorship, professional role, caregiving position, or other relationship involving authority or confidence.

Whether a fiduciary duty existed or was legally breached is a question for the governing law and the trier of fact. Forensic psychiatric analysis may assist in determining what the older adult understood, the degree of dependency involved, whether consent was meaningful, and how the fiduciary or trusted person’s conduct affected decision-making.

Questions a Rigorous Analysis Should Answer

• What exact transaction, document, transfer, or decision is disputed?

• What was the relevant date or period?

• What abilities did that particular decision require?

• What did the person understand about the nature, terms, beneficiaries, risks, and consequences?

• Could the person compare alternatives, evaluate advice, detect inconsistencies, and communicate a stable choice?

• What cognitive, psychiatric, neurological, medical, sensory, functional, or medication-related factors were present?

• Was the person dependent on another individual for care, housing, transportation, communication, medication, finances, or emotional support?

• Was access to family, friends, attorneys, physicians, accountants, or independent advisors restricted or controlled?

• What conduct is attributed to the alleged exploiter, and what evidence supports that account?

• Was there secrecy, urgency, deception, intimidation, emotional pressure, selective disclosure, manufactured conflict, or interference with independent advice?

• Was the transaction consistent with the person’s longstanding intentions, values, relationships, and prior financial behavior?

• What facts support an innocent, legitimate, or non-exploitative explanation?

• What important records, witnesses, communications, or financial evidence remain missing?

Capacity, Vulnerability, and Consent Are Related—but Different

Capacity concerns the person’s ability to understand, appreciate, reason about, and communicate a decision, as required by the applicable standard.

Vulnerability concerns susceptibility to deception, pressure, dependency, manipulation, or impaired resistance.

Consent concerns adequate understanding and appreciation, access to material information, and voluntary choice.

A person may have capacity and still be unusually vulnerable. A person with cognitive impairment may still make a voluntary and values-consistent decision. Poor judgment is not necessarily incapacity. Generosity is not necessarily exploitation. Family conflict is not necessarily undue influence.

Older adults remain free to make decisions that others regard as eccentric, imprudent, unfair, or unwise. The forensic question is not whether the expert would have made the same choice. It is whether the evidence establishes a legally relevant impairment or influence mechanism.

Meaningful consent requires more than the ability to say “yes” or sign a document. The analysis may require consideration of what was disclosed, what was withheld, whether representations could be verified, whether independent advice was genuinely available, and whether refusal was psychologically and practically possible.

Evidence Commonly Reviewed

The evidence should be organized around the disputed act, the relevant time, the alleged mechanism, and the competing explanations. Volume is not a substitute for relevance.

• Bank, brokerage, credit-card, loan, and transaction records

• Wills, trusts, amendments, beneficiary designations, deeds, contracts, powers of attorney, and guardianship or conservatorship documents

• Medical, psychiatric, neurological, pharmacy, rehabilitation, and home-health records

• Cognitive evaluations and neuropsychological testing

• Emails, text messages, letters, voicemail, recordings, calendars, metadata, and other contemporaneous communications

• Attorney, accountant, financial-advisor, fiduciary, caregiver, and institutional records

• Third-party reports, such as Adult Protective Services or law enforcement

• Deposition testimony, declarations, interviews, and prior statements

• Evidence concerning access, dependency, isolation, control of information, and changes in relationships

• A chronology linking illness, functional change, relationship events, legal acts, and financial transactions

• Evidence supporting the challenged transaction, including prior intent, legitimate compensation, independent advice, reconciliation, and tax or estate-planning objectives

Evidence should be weighted according to temporal proximity, specificity, independence, consistency, opportunity to observe, and relationship to the operative act. Contemporaneous evidence often deserves substantial weight, but no category of evidence is conclusive by label alone.

A clinical note that a patient was “alert and oriented” is not a transaction-specific capacity assessment. A cognitive-screening score is evidence; it is not a legal conclusion. An attorney’s observation that a client appeared lucid may be relevant, but its weight depends on what was discussed, what information was available, and whether understanding and appreciation were tested.

The analysis should address evidence that supports the challenged transaction as directly as evidence that undermines it.

Retrospective Evaluation

Many elder financial exploitation cases are evaluated after the disputed transaction and sometimes after the older adult has died.

A retrospective forensic opinion may be possible when the available record permits a sufficiently reliable reconstruction of the person’s functioning and decision environment at the relevant time. The absence of a contemporaneous psychiatric examination is an important limitation, but it does not automatically prevent meaningful analysis.

The evaluation ordinarily gives substantial attention to contemporaneous documents and observations. Earlier and later evidence may help establish cognitive trajectory, fluctuation, medical change, relationship development, and the consistency or inconsistency of the disputed act with prior intentions.

Common Matters

• Sudden or substantial gifts and transfers

• Changes in wills, trusts, codicils, or beneficiary designations

• Addition of another person to bank, brokerage, or property accounts

• Real-property transfers and deed changes

• Execution or use of powers of attorney

• Loans, investments, annuities, contracts, and disputed business transactions

• Transfers to caregivers, relatives, friends, advisors, fiduciaries, or professionals

• Depletion, redirection, concealment, or withholding of assets

• Transactions occurring during illness, bereavement, dependency, isolation, or cognitive decline

• Disputed compensation, reimbursement, or caregiving arrangements

• Replacement of longstanding attorneys, accountants, advisors, or family contacts

• Transactions alleged to conflict with prior statements, estate plans, or patterns of conduct

• Probate, trust, estate, guardianship, conservatorship, fiduciary, civil, or criminal proceedings

What Forensic Psychiatry Can and Cannot Establish

Forensic psychiatric analysis may address

• Mental and functional condition at the relevant time

• Decision-specific abilities and limitations

• The effects of cognitive, psychiatric, neurological, medical, sensory, and medication-related factors

• Vulnerability to deception, coercion, dependency, or manipulation

• The relationship among impairment, influence, and the disputed decision

• Whether the behavioral evidence supports, undermines, or limits the asserted mechanism

• Contradictory evidence, alternative explanations, and material limitations

Forensic psychiatric analysis does not substitute for

• The court’s determination of the governing law or ultimate legal issue

• Forensic accounting or tracing of funds

• Authentication of signatures or documents

• Valuation of assets, investments, businesses, or services

• Cybersecurity, electronic-device, or digital-forensic analysis

• Proof of motive or intent based on speculation

• Evidence that does not exist or was not preserved

Psychiatric terminology should not be used to fill evidentiary gaps. An opinion should state what the record supports, what it does not establish, and which missing facts materially limit the conclusion.

How Dr. Blum May Assist Counsel

Depending on the legal question, stage of the matter, and available evidence, Dr. Blum’s role may include:

• Early case assessment before expert designation

• Clarification of the psychiatric and behavioral questions embedded in the legal dispute

• Development of a focused chronology around the operative act

• Identification of missing records, witnesses, and evidentiary gaps

• Analysis of capacity, vulnerability, consent, influence, and relationship dynamics

• Assistance with discovery strategy and deposition preparation

• Evaluation of competing factual explanations

• Review of opposing expert reports, methodology, and testimony

• Assessment of whether the available record can support a reliable expert opinion

• Written reports or declarations in selected matters

• Deposition or trial testimony in selected matters

The engagement may remain confidential consultation, proceed to a disclosed expert role, or move from consultation to testimony when appropriate. Any opinion must remain independent of the desired litigation outcome and within the limits of the evidence.

Experience Relevant to Elder Financial Exploitation

Dr. Blum is board-certified in psychiatry and fellowship-trained in forensic psychiatry and geriatric psychiatry. He has worked on more than 1,000 forensic matters, including matters involving elder financial exploitation, elder abuse, mental and testamentary capacity, and undue influence.

In 1999, Dr. Blum was the only mental-health expert asked to testify before the United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation at its hearing on fraud targeting older adults. From 2002 through 2004, he served as a technical advisor to the Research Triangle Institute’s national Financial Exploitation of Older Persons study.

He has served as a consultant to Fiduciary Abuse Specialist Teams in Los Angeles, Orange, and Ventura Counties and on the Board of Directors of the National Committee for the Prevention of Elder Abuse. His publications and professional teaching have addressed elder financial exploitation, capacity, undue influence, geriatric forensic psychiatry, and the investigation and litigation of abuse involving vulnerable adults.

Early Consultation

“By following his suggestions and obtaining his insight, we were able to focus on critical issues and obtain the discovery we needed.”

— D. Brian Reider, Esq.

Read Selected Testimonials

Related Services and Resources

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Mental and Testamentary Capacity 

Forensic Psychiatry Litigation Consulting

Elder Financial Exploitation: Why “Competent” Is Often the Wrong Question

Attorney Case Inquiries

Attorneys may submit a brief, non-confidential inquiry identifying the parties, counsel, jurisdiction, general nature of the matter, disputed transaction or decision, relevant dates, anticipated deadlines, and whether consultation, expert testimony, or both are being considered.

Do not send records, privileged communications, protected health information, financial documents, estate-planning documents, deposition transcripts, or confidential case details until conflicts have been checked and a written engagement agreement is in place.

Submitting an inquiry does not retain Dr. Blum or create an expert-consultant, physician-patient, or other professional relationship.