Interior Design Expert Witnesses: 4

James Rappoport, AIA, NCARB is Principal and Architect of Record at Daroff Design Inc. + DDI Architects PC, a full service Planning, Architectural & Interior Design practice founded in 1973 and specializing in ground-up, renovation and historic adaptive reuse projects for office facilities, hotels, resorts, restaurants, meeting, conference and training facilities, aviation terminals and entertainment projects throughout the USA and Internationally. Mr. Rappoport has successfully provided technical consultation, expert witness opinions, affidavits, certificates of merit, depositions, mediation presentations, testimony and trial support in more than 190 legal cases, engaged by both defendants' and plaintiffs' legal teams. Areas of Expertise:

Architecture Architectural Codes / Design & Standards Architectural Design Architectural Practice ADA - Accessibility Compliance ADA - Accessibility Design Building Codes & Ordinances Construction & Architecture Construction Claims Construction Disputes Facility Programming Furniture, Fixtures, & Equipment Specifications Furniture, Fixtures, & Equipment Failures

Hotel & Resort Design & Planning Interior Design & Planning Office Building Design & Planning Owner – Architect Agreements Owner – Contractor Agreements Professional Liability (Architecture & Design) Project Planning Slip – Fall Accident (Causes) Site Assessment & Development Site Planning & Design Standard of Care (Architecture & Design) Urban Design Urban Development & Planning

View James Rappoport's Consulting Profile.

Gary R. Coburn is an award-winning Restaurant Executive with 40 years of experience creating, opening, running, and advising hundreds of full service restaurants, limited service, quick-service, bars and nightclubs. Additional expertise in restaurant franchising and commercial kitchen design/build from remodels to ground up including conceptual development, viability and business interruption.

With over four decades in the industry, Mr. Coburn has held positions as VP of National Accounts and Design Build for the largest commercial kitchen and distribution company in the country to, Director of Operations, President, COO, Executive Director of Food Services and owner operator. His management experience has included supervising more than 2,000 employees, including 170 managers, along with overseeing consulting assignments for numerous companies.

Clients Include: Joe's Crab Shack, Cask ‘n Cleaver, Lord Charlie’s, El Gato Gordo, Pizza Pronto, Safari Bar Restaurant, Shark Club, Bull Dog Grill, Stronghouse, Pangea, The Ballroom, Juarez Grill, Dickerson’s Club 29, Yucatan Liquor Stand, Zepp’s Atomic Tex Mex, Cabo Grill, Angel Stadium, In Cahoots, The Ball Room, Slick Willie’s, Rodeo, Jake’s, Bobs on the Bay, Crabby Bob’s Seafood, PizzaRev, Honolulu Harry’s, Lahaina Mai Tai Lounge, Canyon Grill, Campagnia, Huey’s Grill & Brewery, Gladstone’s Long Beach, Pro’s Ranch Markets, Lily's Doughnuts & Pops

Litigation Support - Mr. Coburn has served as an expert witness in numerous restaurant-related cases. His services are available to attorneys for plaintiff and defense and include site inspection, thorough reporting, depositions, and trial testimony as needed.

Areas of Expertise:

Slip,Trip & Fall Burns Choking Food Safety Dram Shop Alcohol Employee Safety Commercial Kitchen Customer Injuries Operations Management

Franchise Ownership Permitting Training Investing Accounting Premises Liability / Negligent Security OSHA ADA Procedures Equipment Design

Recent cases retained by Plaintiff:

• Guest incident regarding standard of care including safety, protocols / procedures, adequate warnings, and related issues
• Safety and security practices for proprietors regarding foreseeability of harm, likelihood of injury, notice and reasonable intervention 
• Loss of income, conceptual and goodwill impact based on providing adequate parking

Recent cases retained by Defendant:

•     Loss of income and the feasibility of the concept and the viability of opening the restaurant
•     Slip and fall and the ensuring safety of its patrons and duty to use reasonable care in keeping premises reasonably safe
•     Maintenance, industry standards of furniture handling and procurement, foreseeability of harm, and   likelihood of injury from lack of procedures

View RCI's Consulting Profile.

Retail Expert Witness Corporation celebrates over 10 years of delivering the most precise opinions for over 400 cases nationally with Jerry Birnbach, FISP, Associate AIA, the celebrated expert.

Jerry’s years of retail design for Jerry Birnbach LLC have a proven safety expert recognition and a Top 50 Retail Design Firm. A Top 40 Retail Industry Leader and retail safety expert for 40 years, Jerry has provided opinions for State and Federal court in 47 States for a majority of Slip, Trip and Fall Cases. From his early partnership with Sam Walton, Founder of Walmart - to placing the Issac Mizrahi brand into Target stores across the United States, Jerry set up each of his retail design clients up for maximum success in retails sales and retail safety. Many of his retail clients continue to thrive and maintain the highest level of retail safety culture and retail safety practice as promoted by Jerry. 

In 2012, Jerry launched a retail expert witness business to support cases involving big box retail stores, fast food restaurants, and medical centers, as well as small business retailers, restaurants, and medical practices. Jerry has serviced clients whose cases involved local municipalities, federal safety rules & regulations, building codes, and best practices in retail safety to avoid slip and trip falls. Jerry sees the not-so-obvious when forming his expert opinions and remains openly accessible to his clients’ needs in order to deliver the most efficient and impactful opinion while maximizing the validity of each requested expert witness opinion.

View Jerry Birnbach's Consulting Profile.

Expertise: Ms. Wong is a media-experienced expert on intercultural issues and Feng Shui, an award-winning entrepreneur, a nationally-recognized authority on Asian and Asian-American business, as well as a best-selling author. In 1989 she founded her intercultural consulting and corporate training service and Pacific Heritage Books in 1992, both dedicated to "bridging cultures for better business." Since then she has created and secured a niche as a pioneer and an internationally recognized authority on the U.S. Asian market and feng shui.

Seminars: Through consulting, seminars, training, public speaking, writing, and publishing, Ms. Wong facilitates profitability between Asians and non-Asians globally. Her diverse and impressive clientele includes over 100 major residential and commercial developers nationwide as well as Universal Studios, Motorola, COTY, Nordstroms, Ford Motor Company, AT&T, Bank of America, New York Life Insurance, the Limited, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Home Savings of America, United Way, cities, retailers and school districts.

Media Appearances: Ms. Wong has appeared on OPRAH, LIVE Regis and Kelly (5/1/01), CBS Sunday Morning, CNN Headline News, Discovery & Learning Channels, TIME (7/3/00), NBC, FOX TV, featured in New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, John Naisbitt's Trend Letter, API, The Atlantic, Chicago Tribune, USA Today, Trade and Culture, Seattle Times, Asian Week, and over 300 print, Internet & broadcast features.

Publications: Best-selling Feng Shui Dos and Taboos, Feng Shui Dos & Taboos for Love, 2003 Feng Shui Page-a-Day Calendar, Night of the Red Moon (1994), a historical fiction based on the 1871 Los Angeles Chinatown massacre and favorably reviewed in Los Angeles Times, Asian Week, Seattle's International Examiner, and nominated for Beatty Award for children's literature.

The Baby Boomer's 4-Minute Bible: Enduring Values to Live By (1998).

Been There, Done That: 16 Secrets of Success for Entrepreneurs (1997).

The Wind-Water Wheel: A Feng Shui Tool for Transforming Your Life (1996).

The Practical Feng Shui Chart Kit (1992)

She has served as advisor to Random House and wrote the foreword for Feng Shui: Arranging Your Home to Change Your Life, contributed to the Feng Shui Anthology. Ms. Wong's landmark TARGET: The U.S. Asian Market, A Practical Guide to Doing Business, (1993) was the first book about designing, marketing, and selling to Asians in a culturally-sensitive way for profitability, and won 1995 Best Business Book of the Year Award from Bookdealers World.

Awards: A member of Rotary International and 2001-2002 President, Palos Verdes Sunset Rotary Club, she now holds a special appointment for Rotary Image and Protocol for the 46 clubs of Rotary District 5280 which will host the 2008 Rotary International Convention in Los Angeles. Ms. Wong has been honored as one of the "Outstanding L.A. Businesswomen of the Year" by the National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO). Merrill Lynch and Ernst and Young cosponsored Ms. Wong for INC. magazine's prestigious Entrepreneur of the Year Award. She is also the winner of the IRWIN Award, So. Calif. Book Publicist of the Year and many other awards and recognition from numerous cities and organizations.