Real Estate: Insurance Expert Witnesses: 6

Christopher Hanson, JD, CCIM, has over 44 years of experience in the Real Estate Industry. A retired trial lawyer of over 25 years who's dealt exclusively with real estate cases, Mr. Hanson currently provides subject matter expertise in all areas of real estate litigation.

Background Experience - As a California real estate trial attorney, Mr. Hanson has participated in over 880 Trials, Arbitrations, and Mediations (only 3 UDs). Cases have included negligence, fraud, non-disclosure, breaches of fiduciary duty, and contract. He's defended and sued brokers and their insurance companies. He has represented bidders, borrowers, and banks in regard to foreclosures; and both sides in loan workouts, and worked with national chains doing state-wide store rollouts, and lease renegotiations.  

Prior to his time as an attorney, Mr. Hanson worked for 12+/- years as a Real Estate Broker, actively selling and leasing property (commercial and residential). He holds a CCIM designation, earned by doing deals.  Before his role as a broker, he spent 7+/- years as a title insurance company Advisory Title Officer, where he researched and wrote Preliminary Reports.

Litigation Support - Mr. Hanson offers a balanced and unbiased opinion. His services are available to attorneys representing plaintiff and defendant and include document review, depositions, and discovery, along with arbitration and mediation. His opinion takes into account all the technicalities and nuances of real estate along with his 4 decades of experience, and is delivered in a way a jury can easily understand. 

Areas of Expertise:

Larry Lowenthal is a nationally recognized Real Estate Expert Witness who has been retained by dozens of attorneys across the United States since 2003 to analyze failed or troubled real estate transactions. 

Based in North Central Florida, he is also retained to help with substantial commission or fee disputes.

Insurance Defense attorneys retain Larry when their broker clients are charged, while plaintiffs and their attorneys retain him when charging real estate brokers with improper conduct. 

Andrew Allocco, PE, is a leading Construction Consultant, Florida Certified Contractor, Florida Licensed Public Insurance Adjuster and Real Estate Broker. With over 45 years of experience in his fields of expertise, Mr. Allocco's services are sought by individuals, corporations, developers, and law firms to oversee and advise on construction projects. He is the current owner of construction, real estate, and engineering consulting firms.

Background Experience - Mr. Allocco is the President of Indian River Construction Services, Inc. Prior to his current role, he served as the President of Better Homes Construction Services, Inc. of Miami, Florida, which performed in excess of 40,000 Building Inspections. As a Forensic Consulting Engineer, he inspects Commercial, Residential, and Industrial Facilities before, during, and after construction. He assists property owners with complex insurance claims, some of which involve significant and lengthy litigation

Mr. Allocco is not only licensed in the State of Florida as a Professional Engineer and Licensed Public Insurance Adjuster, he holds more Florida certified contractor licenses both presently active and past than any other individual in the State

Litigation Support - Since the early 1970s, Andrew Allocco has been an Expert Witness in many court and arbitration cases involving disputes between owners, builders, contractors, and architects. He has extensive knowledge of the court litigation process and has assisted law firms in providing facts and questions to be used during depositions and discovery motions. Mr. Allocco's services include inspection reports on the status of the property, depositions, trial testimony, arbitration, and mediation hearings.

Areas of Expertise:

Insurance Litigation and Structural Consulting - Mr. Allocco is also called upon by insurance companies and attorneys representing property owners to help adjusters evaluate loss. He has been retained to investigate the cause of structural failures, determine the extent of the structural damage, develop subrogation information, prepare the scope of repair, develop a repair design, draft specifications, and more. Mr. Allocco also has experience with code upgrades and notice of dangerous conditions, including hurricanes such as Hurricane Andrew.

View Andrew Allocco's Consulting Profile.

Dick Bridy, PhD, is a Commercial Real Estate expert and entrepreneur with over 40 years of Commercial Real Estate Development, Brokerage, Investment, Leasing, Private Equity Sourcing, Operations, Construction, and Asset Management experience. He is the CEO of DBI Group (DBI) and Bedrock Investments Group (BIG), Bedrock 1st Mortgage, DBI Commercial Real Estate, and a principal of DBI Asset Management. 

Background Experience - Dr. Bridy and his team entitled and built two shopping centers and five single tenant properties. In addition, he has contracted for the redevelopment of over 3.5 million sq. ft. in 14 shopping centers in the Midwest and the Western US.

An accomplished scholar, Dr. Bridy is a graduate of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania with a B.Sc. in Economics. His graduate studies garnered academic honors recognition from the San Diego State University Graduate School of Business, the Marshall School at the University of Southern California, and the University of Phoenix, from which he received an MBA, EMBA, and PhD respectively.

For decades, Dr. Bridy has served on the boards of many prominent real estate organizations, including the National Association of Realtors, California Association of Realtors, San Diego County Commercial Association of Realtors, and CCIM.

Litigation Support - Dr. Dick Bridy delivers real estate expert witness testimony for the commercial real estate and brokerage industry nationwide. He has been engaged by both plaintiff and defense attorneys. As a commercial real estate CEO, investor, developer, asset manager, broker, and syndicator, Dr. Bridy is an excellent communicator, honed by many years in leadership and advisory positions in the commercial real estate industry and as a Marine Corps officer.

Services include consultation, case review, technical investigation, IME’s, research, laboratory work (in-house or otherwise), report preparation, depositions, arbitration, mediation, court appearances, standby, cancellation of court deposition, and travel. 

Areas of Expertise: 

View Bedrock Consulting Group's Consulting Profile.

Jack G. Cohen has been involved in the Private Money Lending and  Real Estate Industry for over 30 years. He is currently the managing member and director of a private money real estate lending, real estate development, and investment property management company. He is also the San Fernando Realty Real Estate Investment director of the California Bureau of Real Estate. 

Mr. Cohen has experience with commercial, residential, and retail real estate, and construction lending.

Litigation Support: Mr. Cohen has been retained as an expert witness in Real Estate related cases over 50 times since 1990. He represents both Plaintiff and Defense and is experienced with complex cases. His services include thorough reporting, depositions, and trial testimony as needed.

Areas of Expertise:

Robert S. Griswold, CRE, CPM, CCIM, ACoM, RPA, PCAM, CCAM, GRI, ARM, has over 40 years of specialized experience in the field of Real Estate Management. He is currently active as a day-to-day hands-on, licensed practitioner, consultant, and expert witness in all aspects of real estate (except valuation). A 3-time graduate of the distinguished Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California with a BS ('81), MBA ('86) and MSBA (2nd Masters) ('88) in real estate and related disciplines, Mr. Griswold is a recognized expert on management of all types of residential real estate. He has actively managed over 70,000 residential units and several million square feet of commercial, industrial, self-storage and retail properties nationally. He has extensive experience as a court-appointed receiver (over 200 times) for private lenders and major financial institutions. 

Litigation Support - In the last 40+ years, Mr. Griswold has consulted on over 4,000 litigation matters, has been deposed over 700 times, and provided sworn testimony in trial or arbitration on over 200 occasions in both state and federal litigation matters throughout the United States. Also serving as a court-appointed bankruptcy Custodian and Referee, his casework is very evenly divided between plaintiff and defense work. Mr. Griswold is uniquely qualified to opine on real estate-related litigation matters, having authored or co-authored the 12 best-selling real estate books: Real Estate Investing For Dummies, Property Management Kit For Dummies; Mortgage Management for Dummies, and Landlord's Legal Kit For Dummies. His 15+ years as an On-Air NBC-TV Real Estate Expert and a similar tenure as a major radio station weekly talk show host have prepared him to explain complicated matters at an 8th grade level and present convincing opinions to juries. 

Areas of Expertise:

View Robert Griswold's Consulting Profile.