Caroline Van Alst is a partner in the Forensic and Financial Consulting Services Group at Hemming Morse with 20 years of experience in conducting forensic accounting investigations.

Caroline’s forensic accounting experience includes white-collar crime investigation, construction disputes, complex contract disputes, shareholders and partnership disputes, bankruptcy insolvency analyses, unfinished business claims and individual and corporate fraud investigations. Her fraud investigation work has involved investor fraud, Ponzi schemes, embezzlement, fictitious vendors, construction billing fraud, financial reporting fraud and insurance fraud, among others. Caroline has assisted clients in a wide range of industries, including agriculture, banking, automotive, healthcare, insurance, legal, government and construction. She has worked for both the prosecution and defense, serving as a consultant and expert witness in civil and criminal cases, testifying in federal and state courts and presenting at mediation.

Prior to focusing her practice on forensic accounting, Caroline served as a financial and compliance auditor of labor union trust funds in the Employee Benefit Plans Audit Group at Hemming Morse. These unions included carpenters, sheet-metal workers, teamsters, lithographers and painters and tapers. Her work included communication with labor and management trustees, reviews of bargaining-unit agreements and construction business records, calculations of damages and trial testimony.

A member of several professional organizations, Caroline has served as chair of the San Francisco Chapter of the California Society of Certified Public Accountants (CalCPA) Litigation Consulting Services Section and as a member of the Finance Committee of the San Francisco Bar Association. In 2012, she was elected as a Governing Board Member of the Sausalito Marin City School District and has served as the Board Clerk and on the Board Finance Committee since that time.

Golden Gate University, San Francisco, M.S. Accounting, 2002
Edmund Celeski Award for Outstanding Graduate

University of Southern California, B.S., Business Administration, Emphasis in Finance, 1989

American Institute of Certified Public Accountants
Member

California Society of Certified Public Accountants
Member
Former chair, Litigation Consulting Services Section

American Women’s Society of CPAs
Member

Bar Association of San Francisco
Member
Former member, Finance Committee

National Association of Women in Construction
Member

Sausalito Marin City School District
Governing Board Member, Trustee
Board Clerk
Board Finance Committee