Credit Counseling Consultants

The Brownstein Corporation is a nationally-known Crisis Management Firm comprised of senior business and consulting professionals who specialize in providing management and advisory services to companies "in transition," such as those experiencing difficulty due to financial pressures, changing business conditions, management issues, and challenges posed by growth opportunities, as well as to their shareholders, lenders and creditors.

Consulting Services:

• Turnaround management & advisory services for companies, lenders and creditors
• Obtaining buyers and refinancing for businesses in special situations
• Fiduciary services: wind downs, plan administration, trustee roles
• Litigation support, investigations and valuations

Howard Brod Brownstein, CTP, is a nationally-known Turnaround and Crisis Management professional with over 40 years of experience. He serves as a President of The Brownstein Corporation, where, in addition to leading turnaround assignments, advising senior management, and fulfilling a senior management role, he has overall responsibility for the firm’s transactional activities and for the marketing of its services to clients.

Mr. Brownstein is a Certified Turnaround Professional (CTP). He has served on the International Board of Directors of the Turnaround Management Association (TMA) and its Executive Committee, and chaired its Audit Committee. Mr. Brownstein received TMA’s “Outstanding Individual Contribution” award in 2007. He also serves on the Board of the American Bankruptcy Institute (ABI), co-chairs its Complex Financial Restructuring Program, co-chaired its Mid Atlantic region for several years, and is a Contributing Editor of the ABI Journal. He serves on the Governing Board of the Commercial Finance Association (CFA) Education Foundation.

Mr. Brownstein is a frequent speaker at professional and educational programs, including at Harvard Business School, Villanova Law School, Northeastern University, ABI, the American Bar Association, and TMA. He has authored over thirty articles, and has served on the Editorial Board of The Journal of Corporate Renewal, and serves as a Contributing Editor of abfJournal.

View Howard Brownstein's Expert Witness Profile.

Peter W. Leibundgut, Esq. has 30 years of transactional, public, and private commercial and real estate finance, legal, and bank consulting experience.

Mr. Leibundgut has provided expert testimony, reports and litigation support in cases involving over 4 billion dollars involving legal malpractice, contractual, fraud, commercial lending, and equity disputes.

Consulting Services - Mr. Leibundgut is a consultant to companies, EB-5 Regional Centers, financial institutions, state banking regulators, and the federal government in emerging credit risk management techniques, developing “best practice” underwriting and due diligence guidelines and oversight procedures, bank mergers and acquisitions, special assets and work-outs, and developing regulatory compliant commercial lending policies, processes and procedures to meet financial crisis concerns and emerging laws and regulations

Mr. Leibundgut is experienced in complex credit transactions including:

Asset based, factoring, securitizations, bonds, syndications, healthcare, commercial real estate, P3s, transportation, purchase order, mortgage, public and private offerings, letters of credit, secured and unsecured transactions, equipment leasing, microfinance, aircraft and vessel finance

Peter Leibundgut has lectured and taught on a variety of topics, including lender liability; cross-border transactions; Sarbanes Oxley/FASB; Equipment Leasing; Factoring; Asset Based Lending; Ship Mortgages and finance; real estate development, special assets and creditors’ rights; commercial loan documentation; and credit risk management in commercial loan portfolios and shared-loss compliance.

View Peter Leibundgut's Expert Witness Profile.

Pat McElroy, Jr. has more than 40 years of experience in the Banking Industry as a Regulator, Banker and Consultant. He has provided various management, lending, operational and regulatory services to financial institutions throughout the United States. Mr. McElroy has extensive experience as an expert witness and has been qualified in civil, criminal and bankruptcy proceedings. He is courtroom seasoned and also has high profile case experience. 

Areas of Expertise:

Bank Policies and Procedures Forgery Fraud Lender Liability Lending Related Matters Bond Claims

Regulatory Compliance Credit & Collections Ordinary Care Employee Crime Industry Standards Bankruptcy Proceedings

As Author of Anatomy of Credit Scores and Founder / President of Easy Credit Relief, Inc., Douglas Minor focuses on helping and teaching people how to understand the credit system. Showing them the best ways to use credit and maximize their score.

Doug has spent the last 25 years reviewing personal credit reports and financial profiles of individuals. He has happily been quoted and interviewed for articles appearing in FoxBusiness.com, Yahoo! Finance, and Entrepreneur Magazine.

During this time he has enjoyed answering thousands of questions regarding credit scores and the information contained in credit reports.

Having a pragmatic disposition as well a broad base of experience in business he has the unique knowledge and academics to assess damages. He has performed training classes to audiences of all levels of sophistication including Professional Groups, Lenders, CEO’s, and Consumers. As a respected Expert in Credit Related Damages, Credit Reporting, and Scoring he serves as a litigation consultant / expert witness for those involved in credit damages litigation.

Cambria Associates has provided consulting services to the Banking, Finance, and Real Estate industries for more than 24 years. Serving more than 100 clients over the years, and currently working with 30 banks, thrifts and credit unions with assets ranging from $100 million to $12 billion, Cambria Associates operates primarily in the Chicago area, but also in New York, California, Florida, Wisconsin and Iowa.

Cambria Associates focuses primarily on asset and loan review for its clients, with watch-list credits, analysis of risk ratings, quality of documentation and administration, adherence to policies, and monitoring and recommendations. Their partial client list includes Banco Popular NA, Glenview State Bank, Charter National Bank, Tuscola National Bank, Buffalo Savings Bank, Blackhawk Community Credit Union, Hawthorne Credit Union, Devon Bank, THE National Bank, Farmers & Merchants Bank and Trust, Foster Bank, Western Springs National Bank, and High Country Bank.

Banking Industry Services

Loan Review Loan Workout Policy Review Bank Acquisitions Due Diligence

Commercial Lending Real Estate Lending Regulatory Response / Repair Banking Litigation Support

Principal, John B. Schnure, President of Cambria Associates, has 40 years of experience in Banking, Bank Management, Lending, Loan Review Due Diligence, and Commercial Real Estate. He has worked with Cambria Associates for over 25 years and has worked with over 100 banks as clients over the years.

Background - Mr. Schnure holds an MBA from Columbia University with majors in International Business and Real Estate, and a BBA from University of Cincinnati with a major in Finance. He has post-graduate study at Dartmouth College and University of Virginia Business Schools. Mr. Schnure has been President and CEO of three Chicago area banks/thrifts, and prior to that was Vice President of The Northern Trust Company in commercial lending and management.

View John B. Schnure's Expert Witness Profile.