Government Contracts Expert Witnesses: 2

Jess Birken, MNM, Esq.

Jess is the owner of Birken Law Office PLLC, a boutique law firm serving nonprofits and charitable entities with their compliance and operational issues. Jess empowers nonprofits to achieve their mission by doing things right. She connects clients with the right tools, right coaching and right contacts. Ms. Birken is a nationally recognized attorney both for her service and understanding of the nonprofit & charitable sector as well as for her innovative subscription based law firm model. Listen to Jess' podcast Charity Therapy on your favorite podcast player.

Credentials

• BA, Sociology, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
• JD, Mitchell Hamline School of Law, Magna Cum Laude
• MA, Nonprofit Management, Hamline University School of Business
• For additional information view LinkedIn

Litigation Support 

Ideal client engagements are with attorneys for either plaintiff or defendant representing nonprofits involved in complex nonprofit business or compliance cases.

Biography

Ms. Birken is the former CEO & Managing Partner at Urban Birken PLLC, a boutique firm that focused on serving the nonprofit community and started her own firm in 2016. Jess has extensive non-legal experience working inside nonprofit organizations for most of her career prior to law school as well as after attaining her masters.

Before becoming a private practice attorney, Ms. Birken served inside a mid-sized national nonprofit organization, Pheasants Forever. In that role she managed ~$50,000,000 in state and federal government grants and worked on hundreds of conservation real estate transactions. Jess is deeply experienced in the reality of federal grants management across the entire life cycle. Ms. Birken has a deep understanding of the norms and best practices of the nonprofit sector, as well as the legal and regulatory environment these organizations exist within. This expertise was developed through her academic work obtaining a Masters in Nonprofit Management, in the work environment and through private practice experience.

Birken Law Video Introduction

Contact Information

You can contact Ms. Birken via e-mail or follow her on Twitter or Facebook.

Click here to schedule a free call now.

Florida Office:
Andrew Avalon, PE, PSP
Chairman & CEO
8633 Willow Kane Court
Orlando, FL 32835
aavalon@long-intl.com
T: (407) 445-0825     F: (407) 650-3399

Long International provides expert engineering and construction claims analysis, expert testimony, project management consulting, and insurance claims analysis services. We focus on projects in the following industries: building and construction; gas, gasification, GTL, LNG, and NGL; industrial and manufacturing; mineral and mineral processing; offshore oil and gas; oil sands; pipelines and utilities; power; refineries, petrochemical, and chemical; transportation; and water, wastewater, dams, and marine. We analyze claims, not limited to, disputed change orders, schedule delay, acceleration, time extensions, liquidated damages, loss of productivity, defective specifications, and deficient project management performance.

Richard J. Long, P.E., P.Eng., Founder of Long International, has over 50 years of U.S. and international consulting experience involving construction contract disputes analysis and resolution, arbitration/litigation support and expert testimony, project management, engineering/construction management, cost and schedule control, and process engineering. As an internationally recognized expert in the analysis and resolution of complex construction disputes for over 35 years, Mr. Long has served as the lead expert on over 300 projects having claims ranging in size from US$100,000 to over US$2 billion. He has presented and published numerous articles on claims analysis, entitlement issues, CPM schedule and damages analyses, cumulative impact claims, and claims prevention.

Rod C. Carter, CCP, PSP is President of Long International and has over 20 years of experience in construction project controls, contract disputes and resolution, negotiations, mediation, arbitration support, and expert testimony on scheduling, loss of productivity, and quantum issues.  He has experience in entitlement, schedule, and damages analyses on over 30 construction disputes ranging in value from US$100,000 to US$7 billion, related to oil and gas, oil refinery, LNG, heavy civil, nuclear, environmental, chemical, power, industrial, commercial, and residential construction projects. Mr. Carter specializes in loss of productivity, cumulative impact, and quantum calculations, and had a lead role in assessing damages on more than a dozen major disputes.  In addition, Mr. Carter has developed cost and schedule risk analysis models using Monte Carlo simulations to address the uncertainty of estimates and claims.

Scott M. Francis, P.E., PSP is a Vice President of Long International and has over 20 years of experience in project management, contract disputes analysis and resolution, CPM schedule preparation, execution, and analysis, productivity analysis, contract administration, design engineering, construction management, and government contracting.  He provides schedule development and assurance services, cost estimating, and claims analysis services on projects for both owners and contractors.  Specific responsibilities include CPM development and reviews, CPM schedule delay and acceleration analyses, change order impact analysis, issue identification, correlation of impacts to schedule activities, and productivity evaluations.