Expert Details
Legal Auditing
ID: 730885
California, USA
Expert has testified in over 45 lawsuits, including disputes in federal district courts, California trial courts, JAMS/AAA arbitration, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, State Bar courts, and attorney-client fee arbitration. He has qualified to testify and has testified live at trials and arbitration as a designated attorney fee expert
Expert methodology for reviewing, auditing and evaluating legal invoices has been cited, approved and adopted by state and federal courts.
He has been retained as a testifying attorney fee expert by the world’s largest law firms, including Reed Smith, McDermott Will and Emery, Jones Day, Sheppard Mullin, Sidely Austin, Dykema Gossett, Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe, and Littler Mendelson, among many others. Expert is a member of the California State Bar and is unique among fee experts in that he was a trial attorney for more than a decade at two of the world’s largest law firms (Akin Gump and K&L Gates). Expert has managed a multi-billion dollar litigation portfolio and has audited hundreds of millions of dollars in legal fees from law firms nationwide since 2008. He is a California State Bar-approved continuing legal education instructor on attorneys’ fees who has trained hundreds of executives and in-house counsel from a host of Fortune 500 corporations
Expert is also qualified as an attorney-client fee dispute arbitrator with the California State Bar’s Mandatory Fee Arbitration program and as a judge pro tem with the California Superior Court for the County of Los Angeles.
Expert was the testifying fee expert on a series of fee applications by class counsel in Jones v. Wells Fargo, on behalf of aggrieved California consumers in the first consumer class action brought under the Unruh Act. Relying upon his testimony regarding the reasonableness of hourly rates and overall work performed, the trial court awarded more than $25 million in attorneys' fees to class counsel.The district court for the Central District of California adopted and approved Expert's methodology for identifying and quantifying block-billed, vague and redacted billing entries and slashed Plaintiff's total fee request by more than sixty percent in CNS v. Planet. In this First Amendment dispute, Plaintiff sought more than $4.8 million in attorneys fees, claiming more than 11,000 hours of billable work over five years of litigation. His expert analysis allowed the trial court to clearly identify and quantify the vague, redacted and block-billed time entries, and apply Expert's recommended discounts of $708,682.39 for block billing and $186,189.62 to vague and redacted entries. The trial court further eliminated more than 1,300 claimed hours of work identified by Expert as duplicate and non-compensable. The trial court reduced Plaintiff's fee request in a FEHA action by over $1 million based upon his expert attorney fee testimony. Plaintiff moved for an award of $(Undisclosed) in attorneys' fees, which the trial court reduced. Expert's testimony showed that the hourly rates claimed by Plaintiff's counsel were unreasonable under the circumstances, that excessive time was spent on inter-office communications, and that the matter was overstaffed.
Education
Year | Degree | Subject | Institution |
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Year: 2000 | Degree: JD | Subject: Law | Institution: University of Southern California Law School |
Year: 1994 | Degree: BA | Subject: Psychology and Linguisitcs | Institution: University of Southern California |
Work History
Years | Employer | Title | Department |
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Years: 2012 to Present | Employer: Undisclosed | Title: President | Department: |
Responsibilities:He is the principal and founder, which helps clients identify, eliminate and prevent law firm overbilling. He has testified in a number of state and federal courts as an expert on attorney fee issues, including reasonableness of fee requests, lodestar requests and best practices for law firm billing. |
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Years | Employer | Title | Department |
Years: 2005 to 2012 | Employer: K&L GATES LLP | Title: Head of Southern California Toxic Tort Practice/Senior Associate | Department: Litigation and Dispute Resolution |
Responsibilities:He headed the Southern California toxic tort defense group for world’s fifth-largest law firm and was manager and attorney of record for a multi-jurisdictional litigation portfolio with aggregate value of over $1 billion. In this role, he managed lawyers and law firms across the country, and trained attorneys in “best practices” compliance with client billing guidelines and ethical rules. Thus, he is intimately familiar with law firm billing practices and the widespread potential for abuse. He also had extensive trial experience as first and second chair trial counsel, and obtained favorable jury verdicts and dismissals in various state and federal courts. |
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Years | Employer | Title | Department |
Years: 1999 to 2004 | Employer: Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP | Title: Associate/Summer Associate | Department: Litigation and Dispute Resolution |
Responsibilities:He defended consumer class actions and unfair competition claims, including California’s In re Structured Settlement Litigation. He also handled all aspects of pre-trial, discovery and motion practice for numerous national and international corporate defendants. |
International Experience
Years | Country / Region | Summary |
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Years: 2012 to Present | Country / Region: Canada | Summary: Expert has been retained by a major Canadian public utility to provide training to its in-house legal department, to develop and implement outside counsel billing guidelines, and to assist with the review and audit of billings on specific matters and litigation files. |
Years: 2012 to Present | Country / Region: Asia | Summary: Expert has provided training on law firm billing and legal invoice review strategies to in-house counsel and executives in China, Japan and Singapore, among other countries. |
Years: 2014 to Present | Country / Region: Korea | Summary: Expert has testified on a number of occasions as an expert in the High Court of Seoul (Korea Court of Appeals) regarding matters of California law. |
Career Accomplishments
Associations / Societies |
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National Association of Legal Fee Analysis (NALFA); A.M. Best Certified Attorney Fee Practice Group; The Claims and Litigation Management Alliance (The CLM) The CLM Audit Committee; California State Bar Certified Continuing Legal Education Provider (Provider No. (Undisclosed)) American Bar Association; Los Angeles County Bar Association Attorney-Client Mediation and Arbitration Services Trained Attorney Fee Dispute Arbitrator Thompson Reuters Expert Services Network Round Table Group |
Licenses / Certifications |
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* State Bar of California (Admitted January) * United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit * United States District Court for the Central District of California * United States District Court for the Eastern District of California * United States District Court for the Southern District of California * United States District Court for the Southern District of California |
Publications and Patents Summary |
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Numerous articles on law firm billing issues, attorneys' fee disputes and electronic privacy. |
Additional Experience
Expert Witness Experience |
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Expert has been retained as a consulting and testifying expert in connection with attorney-client fee arbitration, attorneys’ fees motions and oppositions, and lawsuits pending in numerous jurisdictions (including the state courts of California, New York, Texas and Florida, and U.S. District Courts in California, Texas, Louisiana and Washington). Expert has opined on the reasonableness of attorney fees and hourly rates, as well as overall litigation management and best practices for law firm billing. He has provided cost-effective, expert testimony and guidance in disputes both large and small, assisting law firms, Fortune 500 companies, small to mid-size corporate defendants, and high net-worth individuals, and has testified in a number of California state courts, federal courts and attorney-client fee arbitration. |
Training / Seminars |
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Expert has lectured and published extensively on the subject of attorneys' fees, legal cost management and law firm billing practices. He has personally trained more than 200 legal departments, in-house counsel and Fortune 500 executives on identifying and eliminating the billing practices that lead to law firm over billing. |
Other Relevant Experience |
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Expert is a member of the California State Bar, a trained attorney-client fee arbitrator with the Los Angeles County Bar Association’s Attorney-Client Mediation Service and a certified California State Bar MCLE instructor on legal billing issues. He has been accepted into numerous professional and expert organizations, including the National Association of Legal Fee Analysis (NALFA); the A.M. Best Certified Attorney Fee Practice Group and the Round Table Group. He is a member of the Claims and Litigation Management Alliance (CLM), where he serves on the Audit Committee. |