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About BVLaw™
It’s impossible to practice business valuation without knowing the relevant case law. That’s why Business Valuation Resources LLC created BVLaw. Appraisers and attorneys alike turn to the exclusive BVLaw collection of 3,000+ cases and case abstracts concerning economic damages, lost profits, estate and gift tax, divorce, shareholder repression, partnership dissolution, securities litigation—and more.
Unlike LexisNexis or Westlaw, BVLaw serves as a central, fully searchable repository for all valuation cases and summary digests. Everyday BVLaw legal analysts track published decisions from the courts in all 50 U.S. states and federal jurisdictions– including the Delaware Chancery Court and the U.S. Tax Courts– guaranteeing that you (and your clients) keep current on all the very latest valuation law.
Benefits of Subscribing
BVLaw subscribers enjoy the following benefits and competitive advantages:
- Find valuation cases with a click of a button – Our uniquely distinctive collection of business valuation case law eliminates the need for cumbersome searching through broader information services for relevant case materials. BVLaw legal analysts do the work for you by identifying, collecting and concisely distilling case decisions.
- Find case abstracts and full-text court opinions dating back to 1925, for all “landmark” cases in key business valuation issues such as discounts for lack of marketability, control premia, the effect of taxes in S Corporations, embedded capital gains taxes, reasonable certainty of lost profits calculations, standards of value in divorce, statutory fair value appraisals, goodwill valuation, reasonable compensation, and more.
- Lower legal research fees – BVLaw subscribers enjoy lower research bills compared to LexisNexis and Westlaw because BVLaw charges one flat subscription fee. There are no per-search or other hidden fees, and no searching through endless, unrelated precedents to find the valuation-specific cases you need.
- Save time and get a guaranteed complete analysis of case law from BVLaw valuation-specific case law digests. Lengthy decisions have already been concisely summarized by BVLaw legal analysts.
- State-of-the-art search engine – The BVLaw search engine has been peer-reviewed by thousands of BV appraisers and attorneys for functionality and ease of use. Subscribers may use a variety of search tools to quickly find required case law materials. Search by keyword, date, citation, judge name, SIC code, jurisdiction, type of case, or any combination. And, BVLaw search results clearly identify what valuation issues were before the court—and what factors won the case for the appraiser and attorney.
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Content & Coverage
BVLaw™ includes the following content.
- Cases - Our collection of full text cases includes the full text of over 2,700 federal and state court decisions involving business valuations. The fully searchable archive is available in both HTML and PDF, giving you the utmost in research flexibility. PDFs of case decisions provide an exact image of the decision as handed down by the court.
- Case Abstracts – The exclusive BVLaw collection of 3,000+ business valuation case abstracts make legal research quick and efficient. Each case abstract provides concise, clear and comprehensive summaries of each landmark legal decision in the BV space, including the specific valuation issues presented before the court.
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Search Overview
BVLaw offers three valuable search tools to help you quickly and easily find the information you need.
- Quick Search – Use Quick Search to quickly and efficiently query the entire BVLaw collection. Entering a keyword(s), citation, judge name or any other search string retrieves documents containing your search terms anywhere in a document.
- Browse by Topic – This exclusive feature allows you to quickly and easily search the entire BVLaw collection by those keywords and topics most common to business valuation research. Simply scroll through the alpha list of keywords, click on the topic most relevant to your research and begin browsing targeted results.
- Advanced Search – Use Advanced Search when you have a more specific research need. The fielded search form allows you to either search the entire BVLaw case law collection or to narrow your focus to only those materials or topics relevant to your search. Specific search fields allow you to search by keyword, citation, jurisdiction, type of case, SIC code, date and other parameters. For example: when you want all marital dissolution case abstracts in the state of Connecticut, follow these steps:
- Click Advanced Search on the homepage
- In the Documents to Search section of the search form, click “uncheck all” and then select “Case Abstracts”
- In the State/Jurisdiction section, select "Connecticut" from the pull down menu
- In the Type of Case section, select "Marital Dissolution" as the type of action
- Click the Search button
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Search Tips
The default Boolean operator is AND. When searching for a specific phrase, it is necessary to include quotation marks around the phrase in order to only return documents that contain the specified phrase. Boolean operators (e.g. AND, NOT, OR) can be used in conjunction with phrases, as long as quotation marks are used to separate phrases. If no quotation marks are used around a group of words, the search engine will assume an AND should have been placed between each word.
Examples:
- “minority discount”— will return only those documents that have the specific phrase “minority discount”
- minority discount— will return all documents that contain the word “minority” and the word “discount”
- “minority discount” NOT “restricted stock”—will return all documents that have the specific phrase “minority discount,” but do not contain the specific phrase “restricted stock”
Boolean operators can be used when conducting a search. Alternatively stated, single words or words can be combined with AND, NOT, and OR to filter your results.
Examples:
- minority AND discount—will return documents that contain the word “minority” and the word “discount”
- minority NOT discount—will return documents that contain the word “minority” but not the word “discount”
- minority OR discount—returns documents that contain either the word “minority” or the word “discount”
Multiple Boolean operators can be used in conducting a search, so long as parentheses are used to group sub-expressions. Multiple Boolean operators (e.g. AND, NOT, OR) can be used in conjunction with phrases, so long as quotation marks are used to separate phrases.
Examples:
- (minority OR discount) AND mandelbaum—will return documents that have the word “mandelbaum” and either the word “minority” or the word “discount”
- minority OR (discount AND mandelbaum)— will return documents that contain both the word “discount” and “mandelbaum” or documents that contain the word “minority”
- (“minority discount” OR “restricted stock”) AND mandelbaum—will return documents that contain the word “mandelbaum” as well as the specific phrase “minority discount” or the specific phrase “restricted stock”
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Case sensitivity is not an issue when searching. Searching for the word discount will return documents that contain the lower-case “discount” or the upper-case “Discount.”
Noise words may present a problem with your search (i.e., and, for, the, but, as, to, be, etc.). If the phrase you are searching contains these words, you will return zero results unless you use quotation marks.
Examples:
- discount for lack of marketability—will return zero results
- “discount for lack of marketability”—will return all documents that contain the phrase “discount for lack of marketability”
Wildcard searches are particularly useful as they allow a user to return multiple variations of the same word. This is done by substituting an asterisk (*) for the “wildcard” portion of the search word.
Examples:
- valu*— will return documents that have the word “value,” “valuation,” or “valuing”
- valu—will only return documents that have the word “valu” (e.g. documents that have the word “valuation” will not appear in the results)
- mandel*— will return documents that have the word “mandelbaum” or have other words that begin with “mandel”
- mandel—this will not return documents that contain the word “mandelbaum” but will only return documents that have the word “mandel”
NEAR is a keyword that will affect how your search results are ranked. Search results are normally ranked by what is considered “relevance” (this takes into account factors such as where the word appears, how often it appears, etc.). Using the NEAR keyword will return documents that contain the specified words, and then rank the search results based on how close the two words are to each other in the document.
Example:
- minority NEAR discount—this will return all documents that have the word “minority” and the word “discount,” but the documents will be ranked based on how near the word “minority” is to the word “discount” (i.e., the nearer “minority” is to “discount” in the document, the closer to the top of the search results it will appear)
This will retrieve all marital dissolution cases in the state of Connecticut
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Printing & Downloading
Print Format – use the Print Format links to display and print case abstracts without navigation and other unwanted information.
Printing PDFs – use the print functions within Adobe Acrobat to print the full text of case decision PDFs.
Downloading – Click Print Format and then File to save Case Abstracts for off line use. Use the File feature in the top navigation bar within Adobe to save case decisions PDFs for off line use.
Ask the Editor
We welcome your comments and suggestions about BVLaw™ and BVLaw Alert. Please contact Sherrye Henry, Executive Editor, via email at sherryeh@bvresources.com or via phone at (888) -287-8258 / 503-291-7963.
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Contact Us
Our mailing address:
Business Valuation Resources, LLC
1000 SW Broadway, Suite 1200
Portland, OR 97205
Have a question about your account? Need a password reminder? Please contact our Customer Service department:
Email: CustomerService@bvresources.com
Toll-free: 888-BUS-VALU (287-8258)
Local: 503-291-7963
Fax: 503-291-7955
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Forgot Password?
Have you forgotten your ID or password to access BVLaw™? Contact Customer Service at (888) 287-8258 or (503) 291-7963 or send an email to CustomerService@BVResources.com
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Every day lawyers litigating business valuation related cases see your competitors' products and services - what about yours? Our sponsorship/advertising opportunities ensure you'll reach your sales goals by targeting attorneys and other professionals in the rapidly growing business valuation space. Advertising with us ensures that you will reach 40,000+:
- Business Appraisers
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To learn more about BVLaw sponsorship and advertising opportunities contact us via email at info@bvresources.com or via phone at (503) 291-7963.
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