Professional Ethics Consultants

Marguerita M. Cheng, CFP®, CRPC®, RICP®, Chief Executive Officer at Blue Ocean Global Wealth, is a Certified Financial Planning Expert with 18 years of experience. Prior to co-founding Blue Ocean Global Wealth, she was a Financial Advisor at Ameriprise Financial and an Analyst and Editor at Towa Securities in Tokyo, Japan. Ms. Cheng is a past spokesperson for the AARP Financial Freedom Campaign and a regular columnist for Investopedia & Kiplinger. She is a CFP® professional, a Chartered Retirement Planning CounselorSM, a Retirement Income Certified Professional® and a Certified Divorce Financial Analyst. As a Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards (CFP Board) Ambassador, Ms. Cheng helps educate the public, policymakers, and media about the benefits of competent, ethical financial planning. She served on the Financial Planning Association (FPA) National Board of Directors from 2013 – 2015 and is a past president of the Financial Planning Association of the National Capital Area (FPA NCA). 

Marguerita Cheng CNBC Interview on Social Security

Awards and Honors - Ms. Cheng is a recipient of the Ameriprise Financial Presidential Award for Quality of Advice and the prestigious Japanese Monbukagakusho Scholarship. In 2017, she was named the #3 Most Influential Financial Advisor in the Investopedia Top 100, a Woman to Watch by InvestmentNews, and a Top 100 Minority Business Enterprise (MBE®) by the Capital Region Minority Supplier Development Council (CRMSDC).

Litigation Support - Ms. Cheng serves as a Women’s Initiative (WIN) Advocate and subject matter expert for CFP Board, contributing to the development of examination questions for the CFP® Certification Examination. She also volunteers for CFP Board Disciplinary and Ethics Commission (DEC) hearings. Services to attorneys representing plaintiff and defendant include financial due diligence, thorough reporting, depositions, and trial testimony as needed.

Areas of Litigation Expertise:

Muñoz Dispute Resolution (MDR) provides individualized, personal Mediation, Arbitration, and Dispute Resolution Services for lawyers and their respective clients and principals that national firms cannot provide. MDR drills down on key issues and potential obstacles that may impact the efficient resolution of each case.

MDR can comfortably accommodate multi-party cases and are available to travel both within and outside California. They also have the expertise to confidentially and privately accommodate any resolution using virtual technology.

MEDIATION EXPERTISE:

• Professional Liability - Lawyers (legal malpractice, breach of fiduciary duty, and attorney-client fee disputes), Real Estate Brokers /Agents / Appraisers, Architect and Engineers, Accountants, Medical, Fiduciaries
• Employment - Harassment, Discrimination, Retaliation, Wage / Hour, PAGA
• Probate / Trust Litigation
• Personal injury - Dog bite, Premises liability, Construction Injury, Automobile / Trucking / Motorcycle accidents, Catastrophic Injury / Wrongful Death, Products liability
• Miscellaneous Torts - Defamation, Malicious Prosecution, Lemon Law

ARBITRATION EXPERTISE:

• Professional Liability - Lawyers (legal malpractice, breach of fiduciary duty, and attorney-client fee disputes), Real Estate Brokers / Agents / Appraisers, Architect and Engineers, Accountants, Medical, Fiduciaries
• Employment - Harassment, Discrimination, Retaliation, Wage / Hour Disputes, PAGA

DISCOVERY REFEREE - MDR provides discovery referee services for all civil litigation matters, offering the parties an avenue to informally resolve their discovery disputes before resorting to law and motion. If the issue cannot be resolved informally, MDR will entertain discovery motions and make rational and thoughtful findings and recommendations to the court.

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.

View William A. Muñoz's Legal Malpractice Expert Witness Profile.