Market & Competitive Research Expert Witnesses: 8

Avinash Vashistha has dedicated his career to the unique requirements of the Global Outsourcing Market. His background and understanding of the practices surrounding Offshore Markets provides clients with a custom offshoring strategy, supplier / build mapping, favorable pricing, reduced risk, successful transition and sustainable performance contracts that address issues unique to offshore delivery.

Mr. Vashistha has evaluated and conducted due diligence on over 200 supplier firms, including companies in India, Russia, China, Philippines, Malaysia, C&E Europe, US, Canada, UK, Ireland and Vietnam. He has directed sourcing assessments, IT and BPO / KPO sourcing transactions and executed program governance models realizing $6 Billion in savings for clients. Avinash also developed significant expertise in the areas of R&D, Technology, Human Resources, Finance and Accounting, Analytics, Investment Research, claims processing and other domain specific voice and back office business processes. Mr. Vashistha has been a strong proponent of well-qualified, but lesser known tier-two suppliers in the competitive sourcing process.

Thought Leader: His opinions are sought and recognized by worldwide organizations and conference organizers such as IDC, NASSCOM, CITEM, C-Level, Private Equity Conference, the Indo-American Chamber of Commerce, CII, SBPOA and IAOP. Leading media conglomerates such as the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Time, The Straits Times, The Business Times, USA TODAY, CNN, CNBC, Forbes, Business Week, Bangkok Post, NDTV, Times Group, Business Standard and Cyber Media have featured Avinash extensively. He has been recognized by HRO Today as ‘HRO Superstar’ for 2006 and 2007 in the category of thought leaders and advisors on outsourcing. He has also been recognized as ‘FAO Superstar’ for 2007.

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. 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

Michael Rabinovici specializes in Web and Social Media Marketing. Mr. Rabinovici entered the Internet business in 1994, after practicing law as a commercial litigator. Today, his focus is on leveraging Web and social media marketing strategies to promote clients’ business objectives and deliver defined ROIs.

Mr. Rabinovici is certified with Marketing Experiments, one of the Internet industry’s leading research and testing companies. He has worked with a variety of companies in the areas of Web marketing and social media including IBM, Deloitte, Cisco, PennEnergy, and Fidelity.

Litigation Support - Michael Rabinovici provides expert services on Anti-Spam related issues. Involved in the legislation process, he is conversant with many of the topics inherent in spam marketing. His expertise is available to attorneys representing both Plaintiff and Defense.

Consulting Services: For the past 20 years, Michael Rabinovici has been focused on business-to-business communications, helping some of North America’s leading companies develop copy for virtually every form of marketing collateral, across a huge range of industries. His consulting services include:

• Content Marketing - Blog Posts, e-books, Webinars, White Papers, Info Sheets, Case Studies
• Social Media Marketing - Engage in Network Conversation, Develop Corporate Branded Blogs, Launch Inbound Marketing Campaigns, Build Compelling Mobile Apps

Mr. Rabinovici has appeared on ROB TV and is a sought-after speaker on social media topics and blogs frequently on current developments in Web and social media marketing.

Retained by More Than 120 Law Firms | Expertise You Need + Experience You Want

"I very strongly recommend Rhonda. She’s great to work with, and her work product is absolutely top-shelf." Greenberg & Traurig, LLP

Trademark and Trade Dress Infringement | Surveys | Misleading and Deceptive Advertising | Licensing | Commercial Reasonableness | Merchandising

Founded in 2005, Harper Litigation Consulting and Research has been trusted by more than 120 law firms. Ms. Rhonda Harper is a courtroom proven expert witness, having provided expertise in virtually every circuit, along with JAMS, TTAB, PTO, and FTC. She has also provided testimony for both the prosecution and defense in federal and state criminal trials for offenses ranging from fraud to murder. As a former Fortune 100 chief marketing officer and an adjunct marketing professor, she is uniquely court-qualified in many areas, including intellectual property infringement surveys, misleading and fraudulent advertising, licensing, defamation, and commercial reasonableness. Ms. Harper is routinely retained to formulate expert surveys, conduct rebuttal critiques, or construct rebuttal surveys to show the potential difference in results with properly designed and executed surveys.

Professional Experience

• CMO and VP Marketing, Walmart Sam's Club
• CMO and VP Marketing, VF Corporation VFI
• SVP and GM, Ketchum Communications
• Global Director, Marketing Communications, UPS
• Marketing Promotion Director, Nabisco Biscuit Division

Professional Affiliations

• Board of Directors, Speaker, Brand Activation Association
• Board of Directors, Speaker, Insights Association
• Member, International Trademark Association
• Member, Data and Marketing Association
• Member, Speaker, American Marketing Association
• Member, Speaker, Institute of International Research
• Member, American Association for Public Opinion Research
• Member, Speaker, PR Society of America

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.

Fred Whittlesey is an Internationally-recognized expert providing expert testimony and litigation support services in Executive Compensation, Stock-Based Compensation, and all aspects of Employee Compensation. Mr. Whittlesey formed Compensation Venture Group to leverage his 20 years of consulting experience in a portfolio of compensation advisory and data solutions centered around consulting to Boards of Directors and senior management teams to develop financially-oriented solutions to complex compensation issues.

Litigation Expertise:

• Employment Contracts
• Disputes Regarding Stock Options
• Restricted Stock
• Phantom Stock
• Profit Sharing
• Equity Participation
• Incentive Compensation

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.