Economic Analysis Consultants: 9

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:

Lawrence Amsel, MD, MPH, is Board Certified in Psychiatry and Neurology. An Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and an Attending physician at New York Presbyterian Hospital in New York, NY, he specializes in:

Evidence Based Psychotherapy for Anxiety Disorders - PTSD - Psychological Sequelae of Terrorism

With an MD from Yale University and an MPH in Biostatistics from Columbia University, Dr. Amsel combined his clinical expertise with his analytic mathematics background to become one of the early champions of the application of Decision Science, Game Theory, and Behavioral Economics to Psychiatric Research. 

Dr. Amsel has published numerous articles and delivered presentations, symposia, and workshops on Behavioral Economics and Game Theory and other topics on Mathematical Psychiatry. His speaking services are in demand both nationally and internationally. Dr. Amsel will contribute to the proposed study, “Adolescent and Family Decision Making In Time of Disaster,” as Co-Principal Investigator and will serve as the team expert on decision tasks, helping to incorporate the selected tasks into the overall study design. He will be involved in supervising the collection of data related to these tasks and will help guide study design, data collection and analysis, and assist in the interpretation and publication of research findings. 

In 2003, Dr. Amsel organized the first ever American Psychiatric Association symposium on applications of Game Theory to psychiatry. He has published articles and presented posters on Game Theory modeling of suicide, OCD, and PTSD. After 9/11, Dr. Amsel joined the Trauma Studies and Services division at the New York Psychiatric Institute, and has been involved in treating victims of 9/11 and their families, in training community clinicians in cutting edge treatments for PTSD and Complicated (Traumatic) Grief, as well as in doing research on optimal methods of disseminating this training. 

Over the last several years, Dr. Amsel has been collaborating with Dr. Hoven at the Child Psychiatric Epidemiology Group (CPEG) working on understanding the connection between decision deficits, trauma and psychiatric disorders in the developing brain of children/adolescents. He has extensive clinical expertise within psychiatric research, as well as expertise in applying decision science tasks in psychiatric research settings.

View Dr. Amsel's Expert Witness Profile.

Eric F. Forister, PhD is an Economist with expertise in industrial organization, applied microeconomics, and applied econometrics. He has extensive experience in applying economic insights to understand firm and market behavior, analyzing large datasets using advanced econometric and statistical techniques, and designing and evaluating surveys. He has co-authored medical research papers and legal publications on class certification and market definition. As a consultant, Dr. Forister has addressed issues such as:

Dr. Forister has analyzed dozens of industries including consumer packaged goods, luxury goods, food products, medical services, biotechnology, legal services, fitness, clothing, entertainment, real estate, air and ground transportation, telecommunications, television, electronics, heavy industry, advertising, restaurants, automobiles, gasoline, payment processing, and illicit markets.

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 Expert Witness Profile.

Employment Research Corporation carries out economic and statistical analyses related to employment issues including EEOC audits, OFCCP compliance, wage and hour claims, economic loss, employment discrimination and class action statistical analysis. Analyses are performed using recognized scientific methodology to assure clients of unbiased information. 

Consulting Services:

• Employment Discrimination - Analysis of Reduction in Force (RIF), Compensation and Pay Equity Studies, Data Preparation for Affirmative Action and EEO Reporting, Promotions and Terminations Analyses, Statistical Analysis in Employment Class Action Lawsuits, OFCCP and EEOC cases
• Wage and Hour - Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), California Wage and Hour and Other State and Local Labor Standards, Prevailing Wage Litigation
• Labor Market Statistics - Employment Audits, Labor Market Indicators
• Economic Loss - Personal Injury and Wrongful Death, FELA Analysis of Injured Railroad Workers, Mitigation of Damages in Employment, Economic Analysis of Life Care Plans, Wrongful Termination

Malcolm S. Cohen, PhD, President of Employment Research Corporation, has over 30 years of experience in the field of Economics and Employment specializing in Labor Markets and Statistical Analysis. Dr. Cohen founded the firm in 1997, after retiring as the Director of the Institute of Labor and Industrial Relations at the University of Michigan, which he directed for 13 years. With a PhD in Economics from the MIT in 1967, his research interests include labor market information, labor turnover, employment forecasting and labor shortages. He has directed several major studies to identify national shortage occupations and measure labor turnover using administrative records. 

Dr. Cohen's research has been cited in Time, Money, and leading newspapers throughout the United States. His clients have included Fortune 500 companies and government agencies. His book, Labor Shortages as America Approaches the Twenty-first Century, was published by the University of Michigan Press. His most recent book, Global Skill Shortages, written with Professor Mahmood A. Zaidi, is published by Edward Elgar Publishing.

View Dr. Cohen's Expert Witness Profile.

Huggins Actuarial Services, Inc is a full-service independent consulting firm with more than 100 years of experience providing innovative and clever solutions to a wide range of Actuarial and Risk Management Challenges. They offer a wide range of tactical consulting services providing valuable assistance in the day-to-day operation of your firm, as well as strategic consulting to inform decision-making on matters of extreme gravity.

Huggins employs leading professionals, having the combination of strong analytical skills, business knowledge, and understanding of human behavior to identify, measure, and manage risk. The firm has a reputation of actuarial excellence and a proven track record providing clients with the information and vital services they need to succeed. 

Huggins actuaries have issued more than 600 loss reserve opinions to date, and counting. Credentialed actuaries on staff average over 25 years of experience and have reached top levels of achievement in the actuarial profession, including Chief Actuaries of large multi-line national insurance companies and Partner of Big Four accounting firms Their Integrated team approach provides the highest quality work in a timely fashion.

Consulting Services:

Ronald T. (Rusty) Kuehn is a Consulting Actuary with Huggins Actuarial Services, Inc. and a Fellow of the Casualty Actuarial Society and the Conference of Actuaries in Public Practice, a Member of the American Academy of Actuaries and the International Actuarial Association. In addition, Mr. Kuehn holds the Chartered Enterprise Risk Analyst (CERA) designation, the Chartered Property-Casualty Underwriter (CPCU) designation, and the Associate in Risk Management (ARM) designation.

Mr. Kuehn is professionally active; he has served as the chairman of the Casualty Loss Reserve Seminar (CLRS), which is jointly sponsored by the Casualty Actuarial Society (CAS), the American Academy of Actuaries and the Conference of Consulting Actuaries. He has also served on the on the Casualty Practice Council of the American Academy of Actuaries, the CAS Examination Committee and Committee for Consultants’ Interests, and as past President, Education Chairman and Board Member of the Casualty Actuaries of the Mid-Atlantic Region (CAMAR).

In addition, Mr. Kuehn has served on the Insurance Services Office Private Passenger Automobile Subcommittee and the Homeowners Subcommittee. Mr. Kuehn has also served as a Member of the Conference Task Force on Public Policy Debate of the Conference of Actuaries in Public Practice. He currently serves on the Board of the Insurance Society of Philadelphia (ISOP), and he is a member of the ORSA subgroup of the ERM Committee of the Risk Management and Financial Reporting Council of the American Academy of Actuaries. His over 45 years in business have given him a thorough knowledge of the property-casualty business both from a company and consulting viewpoint. See Full Bio and Consulting Experience.

Grover M. Edie, MBA, FCAS, MAAA, CERA, CPCU, ARM, ARP, is a Fellow of the Casualty Actuarial Society, a Member of the American Academy of Actuaries, a Certified Enterprise Risk Analyst, a Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter, an Associate in Risk Management, and an Associate in Research and Planning. 

Prior to joining Huggins, Mr. Edie was Vice President and Chief Actuary at GMAC Insurance Company, where he oversaw all actuarial activities including pricing, loss reserving, and enterprise risk management in personal auto, commercial lines, auto extended service contracts, assumed reinsurance and other miscellaneous lines of insurance. He introduced Economic Capital Modeling to the organization during his tenure. His previous employers include Erie Insurance Group, John Deere Insurance, and the Insurance Services Offices.

Mr. Edie has over 25 years of actuarial experience. He started his insurance career as an underwriter. The primary services Mr. Edie provides to his clients includes Economic Capital Modeling, Enterprise Risk Management, profitability analysis, rate level reviews and filings, and loss reserve analysis. See Full Bio and Consulting Experience.

Kim E. Piersol, FCAS, MAAA, is a Fellow of the Casualty Actuarial Society and a Member of the American Academy of Actuaries. Prior to joining Huggins, he served as Senior Vice President & Chief Actuary for Crum & Forster Insurance Companies. Prior to that he served as Group Vice President & Chief Actuary for CNA Insurance Companies, and was a consulting actuary for KPMG LLP, Arthur Andersen LLP, and CFO of AIG Risk Management (AIGRM). 

Mr. Piersol is professionally active; he has served on the American Academy of Actuaries Environmental Liabilities Work Group, the NAIC Technical Advisory Committee on Catastrophe Reserves, the Workers’ Compensation Reinsurance Bureau Actuarial Committee, and has been a Director and Treasurer of the Professional Liability Underwriting Society (PLUS). He also served on the Professional Liability Actuarial Subcommittee of the Insurance Services Office (ISO). He has also served as a 1st Lieutenant in the United States Army Field Artillery. His over 40 years in the actuarial field have given him a thorough knowledge of the property-casualty business both from a company and consulting viewpoint. See Full Bio and Consulting Experienc.

View Huggins Actuarial Services, Inc.'s Expert Witness Profile.

Principal, EJ Janik, CPA, CFF, CFE is a Certified Public Accountant with 40 years of professional experience. He has been engaged as an accounting consultant on issues involving, among other things, public and private company audits, due diligence, fact finding, asset tracing, lost profits analysis, damage analysis, fraud analysis, insurance claims and business valuations. Mr. Janik holds a Master of Science in Accounting from Louisiana State University and a Bachelor of Commerce from Rice University. He is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the Texas Society of Certified Public Accountants. Mr. Janik has provided expert testimony in over 88 matters including testimony in 58 trials or hearings in 8 states. His experience also includes over 23,000 hours of Engineering and Construction auditing and consulting work on construction claims matters involving:

Mr. Janik provides accounting, financial, economic, fraud, and business dispute consulting. He has provided over 150 financial audits and consulted in over 765 business disputes. Janik's clients include Bank of America, Coca-Cola Company, FDIC, General Motors Corporation, IBM, Travelers Insurance, and many more. Specific areas of expertise include:

View EJ Janik's Expert Witness Profile.

Research & Planning Consultants, LP (RPC) has been assisting clients with expert services for over 45 years, including consulting and expert witness testimony for personal injury, healthcare litigation, commercial litigation and Certificate of Need matters. RPC also offers a wide selection of health data. They have served clients across the U.S, from Alaska to Florida and from New England to California. 

A Complete Team of Damages Experts for Personal Injury Litigation

Research & Planning Consultants, LP provides the following services: 

• PERSONAL INJURY - RPC provides comprehensive damages analysis in personal injury litigation. Their expert team has life care planners, vocational evaluators, board-certified physicians, economists and neuropsychologists. 

Areas of Expertise include: Life Care Plans, Loss of Earning Capacity or Support, Present Value of Damages, Medical Bill Analysis, Chargemaster Analysis, Neuropsychological Testing & Traumatic Brain Injury, Vocational Evaluations, IMEs, Section 18.001, Prestanding ED Chargemaster Analysis

• COMMERCIAL LITIGATION- RPC has provided expert analysis on commercial litigation concerning many industries: chemicals, refining, forestry, waste management, pipelines, water resources, oil and gas EDP, fisheries, agriculture, electrical generating plants, transmission lines, telecommunications, and real estate development. Our special expertise in the healthcare industry has proven valuable to business litigators unfamiliar with this complex industry.

Areas of Expertise: Breach of Contract / Commercial Economic Damages, Construction Disputes, Litigation over Non-Competitive Agreements, Environmental Torts and Toxic Torts, Commercial Disparagement, Wrongful Termination

• HEALTHCARE LITIGATION - RPC offers economic, statistical, data and clinical analysis in a wide range of healthcare litigation. They have experience with payment disputes, qui tam litigation, physician-hospital disputes, practice valuations and construction litigation. 

Areas of Expertise: Qui Tam Healthcare Litigation, Medical Staff Disputes, Professional Liability, Payment Disputes, Health Facility Construction Disputes, Freestanding ED Chargemester Analysis

• CERTIFICATE OF NEED - RPC provides Certificate of Need (CON) planning services nationwide. We have over 35 years of experience developing regulatory strategy, preparing applications and testifying in public and administrative hearings.

Areas of Expertise: Satellite Hospitals, New Hospitals, Relocation and Transfer of Beds, Observation Beds, Geriatric Psychiatric Units, Children’s Hospitals, Comprehensive Inpatient Rehabilitation Units, Neonatal Intensive Care Units, Open Heart Surgery Services, Long Term Acute Care Units, Projects that exceed CON Capital Threshold Limits, Projects for Specifically Listed Services, Programs Requiring CON, Hospices, Senior Living Facilities

Ronald T. Luke, JD, PhD, is a principal consultant and President of RPC, LP. Ron joined RPC in 1976 and became its president and principal owner in 1979. He has consulted on projects for health care providers, managed care plans and public agencies in more than 25 states. He also serves as an expert witness in trials, administrative proceedings and legislative hearings.

Active in the Health Policy Arena, Dr. Luke has been accepted as an expert in Economics, Socioeconomic Impact Analysis, and Policy Analysis by state and federal courts, and state administrative agencies. The types of cases in which he has provided expert testimony include personal injury, contractual disputes, health care payment disputes, construction defects, utility construction permitting, and certificate of need. He has testified on health care matters including market structure, billing fraud and abuse, reasonableness of charges, medical staff credentialing, workers’ compensation fee guidelines, utilization review, physician contracts, and managed care contracts.

Kacy L. Turner, MS, CRC, CVE, CLCP, is a Certified Life Care Planner and Vocational Consultant with RPC. She has over 20 years of experience in Rehabilitation. Ms. Turner has experience writing life care plans for both plaintiff and defense clients. She has experience as a rehabilitation consultant in three states and has been qualified as a testifying expert in state and federal court.  

Ms. Turner has worked on cases in several states as well as the country of Trinidad. To determine the pre-injury and post-injury employability in personal injury cases, she provides vocational testing, transferable skills analysis, job requirements analysis, rehabilitation plans, and definition of reasonable accommodations under the American with Disabilities Act. She is a member of the International Association of Rehabilitation Professionals, the Texas Association of Rehabilitation Professionals and Providers of Services, and Vocational Evaluation and Career Assessment Professionals.

Brian Piper, PhD,  is an Economist with RPC specializing in Quantitative Analysis and Modelling. He works on a variety of cases including personal injury and certificate of need. He is experienced in data extraction, management, simulation, and analysis using STATA, SQL, ARC GIS and a variety of other programs. Dr. Piper has taught graduate classes in statistics and econometrics in both MBA and Ph.D. programs.

Dr. Piper is an experienced expert, providing testimony, reports, and affidavits on the issues of economic damages in personal injury litigation, healthcare litigation, False Claims Act litigation, and other commercial litigation. He has testified on behalf of plaintiffs and defendants. 

Dr. Piper specializes in the economics of healthcare. He has been retained by healthcare providers and insurers in payment disputes. He has analyzed the reasonableness of charges and expected payment for past and future medical services for providers, insurers, plaintiffs, and defendants. Besides work in litigation, Dr. Piper has provided analysis of Certificate of Need applications and the economic impacts of proposed legislation.

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?"

Dr. Stan V. Smith is a nationally renowned Economist and Financial Consultant providing analysis in simple terms that any trier-of-fact can understand. As an expert consultant to plaintiff and defense attorneys representing clients in Federal State courts, he provides testimony and litigation support services in evaluating damages. 

Dr. Smith provides Analysis, Testimony, and Litigation Support Services in Evaluating Damages for plaintiff and defense attorneys representing clients in federal and state courts nationwide. His concept of Hedonic Damages is acknowledged by judges, attorneys, and legal journalists as one of the most innovative tort concepts in the last 30 years. He has been interviewed and published in dozens of respected professional journals. Dr. Smith has assisted in the successful resolution of thousands of lawsuits on behalf of clients that include many dozens of the nation's largest law firms, the U.S. Department of Justice, as well as thousands of other prominent plaintiff and defense law firms in almost every state. 

Areas of Expertise: