Market & Competitive Research Expert Witnesses: 5

Dr. Cristina Benton is a senior consultant with Anderson Economic Group, directing the Market and Industry Analysis practice area. Her background is in Research and Data Analysis, Community and Economic Development, and Urban Planning.

While with AEG, Dr. Benton has worked on a number of auto dealership franchise projects as well as retail, industry, and market analyses. Among the clients for whom she has worked are Holland Tulip Time Festival, the Ann Arbor Area Convention and Visitors Bureau, and Automation Alley. Dr. Benton has also worked with automobile dealerships in matters of sales performance assessments, geographic territory analyses, market opportunity studies, and expert testimony. 

Prior to joining AEG, Dr. Benton worked as a community and economic development assistant with the City of East Lansing, Michigan where she provided analysis and support to the city’s economic development efforts. Prior to that, she was a research assistant at Michigan State University working on the evaluation of economic revitalization programs in Michigan. 

Dr. Benton holds a PhD in geography and a master’s degree in urban and regional planning, both from Michigan State University, along with a bachelor’s degree in public administration from Babes-Bolyai University, Romania. She is a member of the Michigan Economic Developers Association (MEDA).

Litigation Support - Dr. Benton has successfully testified in countless state and federal courts, legislative hearings, and commercial arbitration panels. Her services include thorough reporting, depositions, arbitration, and trial testimony as needed

Areas of Expertise:

Market and Trade Area Analysis Retail Location and Distribution Network Analysis Sales Forecasts and Performance Assessments Industry Studies and Benchmarking Surveys and Focus Groups

Tourism and Event Impact Studies Real Estate Feasibility and Market Strategies Urban Planning Community and Economic Development Automotive Specialties

Dr. Larry Chiagouris has a rare combination serving as a senior Fortune 500 executive and as an accomplished academician. He has provided expert testimony and written opinions on damages, marketing, advertising, intellectual property issues (including the use of survey research) for plaintiffs & defendants at major national & local firms.

Experience summary:

• Experience evenly divided between plaintiff and defendant engagements over 25 cases

• Several cases include elements of intellectual property issues

• Majority of cases involve elements of consumer behavior or survey research

• Majority of cases involve elements of advertising related strategies and tactics

• Majority of cases involve elements of Internet related tactics

• Majority of cases involve written opinions and depositions

• Written and oral testimony in several Federal District Court jurisdictions

• Engaged by both large multinational law firms and small boutique firms

• Class action cases evenly divided between plaintiffs and defendants

Selected by Agency Magazine as one of 10 best and brightest researchers. He brings extensive experience as a Senior Marketing, Branding and Research Executive responsible for directing major assignments for companies such as AT&T, Campbell Soup, Kraft, Miller Brewing, Peugeot, Pfizer, Prudential and Visa.

He has a Ph.D. in Marketing, is Past Chairman, Advertising Research Foundation and Former Director of the American Marketing Association.

Eric Forister, PhD, is an expert Economist with testifying experience on market definition, market power, and damages. His expertise includes applying advanced statistical techniques to datasets, synthesizing information from documents, and designing and evaluating surveys. A Senior Economist at Econ One, he focuses on relevant questions to tackle complex issues with an efficient and effective style of communication. Dr. Forister also has extensive experience consulting on issues including royalty rates, irreparable harm, sampling, survey design, common impact, and materiality.

Ideal Client Engagement: For litigation-related matters, an ideal engagement would be providing an opinion on economics, damages, market power, or market definition; or providing pre-litigation advice on the economics of potential claims, or the merits of a survey. For non-litigation matters, an ideal engagement would be helping to explain the economics of different business models or consulting to those considering buying or starting an optometry office.

Experience: Dr. Forister has acted in a support/consulting role on over 100 matters. His support work has been a mix of plaintiff and defense work. Dr. Forister has designed and evaluated surveys for IP and marketing cases and worked on a wide range of other matters, including:

• Antitrust - price fixing, exclusionary conduct, monopsony, unfair competition, Robinson-Patman
• Intellectual Property - SEP, FRAND, patents, trademark, irreparable harm
• Marketing - false advertising, product labeling
• General Damages - breach of contract, bankruptcy

Education/Training:

• PhD in Business Administration (Field: Economics), Stanford Graduate School of Business
• BS in Mathematics / Economics, University of California at Los Angeles, magna cum laude

View Dr. Forister's Consulting Profile.

Dr. Thomas Maronick has provided both plaintiff and defense litigators with marketing and consumer expertise for over 25 years. Prior to that he was the in-house marketing expert at the FTC. Since leaving the FTC in 1997, Dr. Maronick has been qualified as an expert in numerous federal and state courts, providing expert reports, affidavits, and testimony on marketing, advertising, and consumer behavior matters. 

Dr. Maronick has designed and implemented over 300 consumer surveys for litigation and/or policy related strategies, using virtually every survey research methodology, including mall-intercept studies, telephone and mail surveys, and studies using the internet and consumer mail panels. Dr. Maronick has testified (deposition/trial) over 75 times in the past five years and is the author of research of the use of surveys in litigation. 

Areas of Expertise:

• False and Deceptive Advertising
• Deceptive Marketing Practices
• Consumer/Advertising Survey Research
• Packaging
• Trademark/Tradedress

Salt Hill Statistical Consulting Alan Salzberg is Senior Statistician and Principal of Salt Hill. Dr. Salzberg's focus is statistical analysis, sampling, estimation, and modeling, especially using large or complex datasets. Many of Dr. Salzberg's consulting projects relate to the detection and measurement of bias or fraud. Dr. Salzberg has testified as an expert witness in statistics in multiple venues. Prior to joining Salt Hill, Alan was CEO at Analysis & Inference. He has also held positions at KPMG (in its Economic Consulting group) and at Morgan Stanley. Dr. Salzberg holds a Ph.D. in Statistics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where he also received a Bachelor of Science in Economics. For musings on everyday probability, see Dr. Salzberg's blog: "What are the chances?"