Essential Accounting Principles Every Attorney Should Know (2025 Edition)

Mark L. Zyla | Zyla Valuation Advisors LLC.

Mark L. Zyla CPA, CFA is the Founder and Managing Director of Zyla Valuation Advisors, LLC in Atlanta, Georgia based valuation and dispute analysis consultancy firm. Mark’s practice is focused principally on valuations in financial reporting and other transactional matters. He also helps in matters in litigation. In addition, Mark serves on the faculty of the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin where he teaches FIN 294 Valuations for Consultants to graduate students.

Mark also has serves as the Advisory Council of M2M Capital, a technology firm which provides valuations of private companies for asset funds. Mark is formerly the Chairman of the Standards Review Board of the International Valuation Standards Council which provides valuation standards of various asset classes on a global basis. He has also served on the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants’ Forensic and Valuation Services Executive Committee. Mark is on the Advisory Council of the Master of Science in Finance program at the University of Texas at Austin.

Mark received a BBA degree in Finance from the University of Texas at Austin and an MBA degree with a concentration in Finance from Georgia State University. Mark also completed the Mergers and Acquisitions Program at the Aresty Institute of The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Preparing to be a Corporate Director and the Valuation Programs at the Graduate School of Business at Harvard University.

Mark is author of Fair Value Measurement: Practical Guidance and Implementation 3rd ed. published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (2020)  and Accounting for Goodwill and Other Intangible Assets (along with Ervin L. Black) published by BNA Bloomberg (2018).

I. The evolving CPA profession & integration of advanced technologies | 1:00pm – 1:15pm

II. Accounting service categories & attest engagements considering recent standards updates | 1:15pm – 1:30pm

III. Key accounting terminology | 1:30pm – 1:45pm

IV. Financial statement training for attorneys | 1:45pm – 2:00pm

Break | 2:00pm – 2:10pm

V. Ratio analysis for legal practice | 2:10pm – 2:25pm

VI. Valuation and damage analysis updates | 2:25pm – 2:40pm

VII. Convergence of accounting and legal services: Implications for attorneys | 2:40pm – 2:55pm

VIII. Impact of climate-related financial disclosure regulations on legal practice | 2:55pm – 3:10pm