One-Time Legal Expenses
One-Time Legal Expenses refer to expenses that are one-time and non-recurring in nature such as lawyer fees for an employee lawsuit or for an acquisition.
Normally, these are adjusted out of projections as they would make the forecasted P&L look lower than they should since they’re not expected to continue on a go-forward basis.
In the room
Add-backs are where valuation gets negotiated. Being able to explain why a one-time cost gets stripped out of EBITDA — and why a buyer might push back on whether it's truly one-time — shows you understand that these numbers are argued over, not just calculated.