For payments via Zelle,
use my email address pamela@tracingqueen.net

 

Pamela Wax-Semus, CFE

Pamela Wax-Semus is a Certified Fraud Examiner and has been providing litigation consulting services since 1988.  She has qualified as an expert witness providing testimony on numerous occasions before the Superior Court of the State of California.

Ms. Wax-Semus is experienced in analyzing and reporting on tracing engagements.  Included in these engagements are post-separation reimbursements, reimbursements subject to Family Code Section 2640, stock option and retirement account allocations, characterization of property as community or separate, and other related issues.  She has vast experience in preparing cash available, support arrearage calculations and standard of living reports in connection with dissolution of marriage proceedings.  In addition, she is experienced in trust and probate accounting, financial accounting, and marital dissolution, including bankruptcy filings, embezzlement actions, and other fraud and litigation related matters.

Prior to starting her own practice, she was a partner with the accounting litigation firm of White, Zuckerman, Warsavsky, Luna, Wolf & Hunt, LLP and was employed with that firm for over seventeen years.  Prior thereto, Ms. Wax-Semus was a Supervisor with Grobstein, Goldman and Company, specializing in investigative accounting including, but not limited to, asset tracings, valuations and other dissolution issues.  She currently serves as a consultant to a number of forensic accounting firms on the issues of tracing and other litigation support related matters.
 
Ms. Wax-Semus has been appointed by the court as Special Master.  A Special Master is accorded the responsibility of deciding a specific issue on behalf of the court.  In addition she has been hired on numerous cases as an Evidence Code §730 court appointed expert.  She has given numerous presentations to professional groups on reimbursement aspects of marital dissolution, marital standard of living issues, and tracing issues. 

Speaking engagements include:

  • California Estate and Trust Litigation: The Accountant’s Role When a Tracing is Required – presented to the 2005 Estate Planning Conference for the California CPA Education Foundation
  • The Tracing Aspects of Commingled Property - presented to the University of Southern California Law Center’s Continuing Legal Education Program
  • Walrath Tracing in Family Law - presented to the Beverly Hills Bar Association
  • Application of Computer Software in Tracing - presented to the Family Law Computer Technology Seminar for the Association of Certified Family Law Specialists
  • Tracing of Assets by Forensic Accountants in Family Law as a Guest Lecturer at Santa Clara University Law School

She has co-authored an article discussing the community property interest arising from the application of community expenditures for improvements, published in the Los Angeles Daily Journal and co-authored various other articles on tracing for the Los Angeles Family Law Symposium as well as having been published in the Association of Certified Family Law Specialists newsletter.  Additionally, she participated in a mock trial as the forensic accountant in the tracing of commingled and separate property, presented to the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers’ Third Annual Institute of Trial Advocacy.

 

 

Pamela Wax-Semus, CFE  Logo

Back to top