Legal / Judicial Ethics Expert Witnesses: 5

Jacob Rebo is an AI governance attorney and expert witness who brings an uncommon combination to the standard of care for artificial intelligence: the law of a JD, the business judgment of an MBA, the analytical discipline of a Six Sigma Master Black Belt, the credentialed expertise of the IAPP AIGP, and years spent building and transforming enterprise AI governance at scale. Mr. Rebo renders opinions grounded in all of them.

He opines on how a reasonable organization or professional should select, validate, govern, monitor, and document AI systems, including large language models, and on whether a party met that standard. His approach is analytical rather than theoretical: he measures the actual decisions, controls, and documentation against the duties and frameworks that govern them, the way a Master Black Belt measures a process against its requirements.

Mr. Rebo has built and led enterprise AI governance for two multibillion-dollar technology companies. At Infinera he built the AI governance program from the ground up. At Nokia he transformed an outdated and ineffective function into a compliant and efficient program, approving large language models for deployment and authoring the policies, procurement standards, and contracting terms that put responsible AI into practice. He also led the enterprise-wide adoption of an AI-based contract lifecycle management system.

Litigation Support: Mr. Rebo assists litigators and firms in matters where AI use is at issue, including professional malpractice, standard of care, and commercial disputes. He also advises insurers and corporate legal departments, and accepts engagements nationwide, for plaintiff and defense, for case review, consulting, and testimony.

Areas of Expertise:

Mr. Rebo holds a JD and an MBA from the University of Montana, the IAPP AIGP credential, and Six Sigma Master Black Belt certification. He previously litigated civil matters in Montana state and federal courts, and is a decorated United States Army veteran who served 15 years and retired at the rank of Captain.

Attorney, Lawrence H. Jacobson, has been practicing in the area of Real Estate Transaction Law and Litigation for more than 50 years. Over the past 30 years, he has been sought out as an expert witness in real estate and legal malpractice disputes and lawsuits in litigation cases throughout the country. 

His firm, The Law Offices of Lawrence H. Jacobson, A Professional Corporation, is recognized as one of the nation's premier offices providing expert testimony in litigation involving all Real Estate Matters and Legal Malpractice. 

Mr. Jacobson has been engaged in the practice of law in Los Angeles since 1968. Formerly Vice President of Legal Affairs for the California Association of Realtors, Mr. Jacobson has served as a judge pro tem for the Los Angeles and Beverly Hills Municipal Court Systems and as an adjunct professor of law focusing on real estate secured transactions and administrative law. He is Past President of the Beverly Hills Bar Association. He has written and lectured extensively on business and real estate related matters. He has served on the faculty of the Graduate Realtors Institute of the California Association of Realtors and a lecturer author for the California Continuing Education of the California Bar.

Litigation Support - Mr. Jacobson offers an impressive record of success as an expert witness in real estate, business, and finance. Included among the numerous cases in which he has testified as an expert witness are disputes over the interpretation of real estate documents, real estate and mortgage brokers’ standard of care and legal malpractice related to real estate transactions and business law including issues involved in corporate finance, merger and acquisition and ethics.

Areas of Expertise:

View Lawrence Jacobson's Consulting Profile.

William A. Muñoz, Esq., is a Civil Trial Attorney, Legal Ethics Expert, and Third-Party Neutral with over 20 years of experience defending attorneys, and other professionals such as architects and engineers, real estate agents/brokers, real estate appraisers, and insurance brokers, as well as defending personal injury, toxic torts, products liability, defamation, wrongful termination / harassment, wage and hour and discrimination claims.

 Mr. Muñoz is currently a member of the California State Bar Committee on Professional Responsibility and Conduct (“COPRAC”) where the Committee interprets and issues opinions regarding legal ethics and the California Rules of Professional Conduct. Mr. Muñoz also serves as an arbitrator for the State Bar’s Mandatory Fee Arbitration program.

Mr. Muñoz previously served as the Chair for the Legal Malpractice Law Advisory Commission for the State Bar of California Board of Legal Specialization responsible for preparing and grading the legal malpractice law legal specialization examination as well as assessing the qualifications of potential applicants seeking the legal malpractice specialization designation and recertification.

Legal Malpractice Litigation Support - As a Subject Matter Expert, and with his wealth of experience, Mr. Muñoz is prepared to address the nuances of each case. His services are available to attorneys representing injured parties in the following areas:

Mr. Muñoz also serves as a Dispute Resolution Conference judge for El Dorado County Superior Court, a judge pro tem for Sacramento County Superior Court’s Settlement Conference Department, and more recently, a mediator for the Third District Court of Appeals Mediation Program. His approach is further informed by the renowned Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution at Pepperdine University Caruso School of Law mediation training program and the National Conflict Resolution Center mediation training program.

An expert in his field, Mr. Muñoz has presented locally and nationally on issues of legal malpractice, conflicts of interests and legal ethics and regularly contributes a column in the Association of Defense Counsel for Northern California and Nevada’s Defense Comment entitled “The Lawyer’s Lawyer” addressing issues of legal malpractice avoidance and legal ethics.

View Muñoz Dispute Resolution's Consulting Profile.

GRANT D. STIEFEL, ESQ. | www.grantstiefel.com | grant@litigationlimited.com

• Grant D. Stiefel, Esq. is a nationally-recognized, full time attorney fee consultant, testifying expert and the principal of Litigation Limited, a boutique legal fee consulting firm
• Mr. Stiefel has testified in nearly 100 lawsuits, including matters in federal district courts, California trial courts, JAMS/AAA arbitrations, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, State Bar courts, and attorney-client fee arbitrations
• He has qualified to testify and has testified live at trials and arbitrations as a designated attorney fee expert
• Mr. Stiefel’s methodology for reviewing, auditing and evaluating legal invoices has been cited, approved and adopted by California 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
• Mr. Stiefel is a member of the California State Bar and is unique among fee experts in that he practiced law for many years at two of the world’s largest law firms (Akin Gump and K&L Gates)
• Mr. Stiefel 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 has developed and implemented outside counsel billing and case management guidelines for Fortune 500 corporations
• 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
• Mr. Stiefel is 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

SAMPLE ENGAGEMENTS

• Grant Stiefel 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 Mr. Stiefel's 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 Mr. Stiefel's methodology for identifying and quantifying block-billed, vague and redacted billing entries in cutting Plaintiff's fee request by more than sixty percent in CNS v. Planet, from $4.8 million to $1.9 million
• In Vides v. ABM Janitorial Services, the trial court reduced Plaintiff's fee request in a FEHA action by over $1 million based upon Grant Stiefel's expert testimony.  Plaintiff moved for an award of $1,578,232.50 in attorneys' fees, which the trial court reduced to $544,183.12.  Mr. Stiefel'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

View Grant Stiefel's Consulting Profile.

Thomas “Tommy” Davenport, Jr., Esq., is a Martial Arts Practitioner with decades of practical experience and ongoing study in both the applied and theoretical dimensions of Self Defense and Physical Conflict. He holds a black belt in Taekwondo and a black sash in 7 Star Praying Mantis Kung Fu, and he is a former world champion in martial arts combat.

In addition to his martial arts background, Tommy is a practicing attorney and professor of law. This combination of experience uniquely positions him to evaluate self-defense and hand-to-hand combat matters through both a practical combative lens and the applicable legal doctrines that often shape such cases.

Areas of Expertise:

Litigation Support - As an expert in martial arts and self-defense, Tommy provides consulting and testimonial services in matters involving self-defense and physical confrontation. As a consultant, he assists attorneys and litigants in understanding the actions at issue, evaluating the conduct involved, and preparing to clearly and effectively present the relevant facts in deposition or court. 

Tommy assists attorneys, litigants, and triers of fact in understanding issues such as threat assessment, the mechanics of confrontation and physical altercations, justification of force, and the neutralization of threats. His analysis may include a thorough review of reports, records, medical documentation, interviews, and qualitative video evidence in order to provide a detailed and reliable assessment.