Defensible expert witness reports, backed by experienced deposition and trial testimony when needed. Areas of expert witness services include economic damages, asset tracing, accounting, and fraud prevention and detection.
Economic Damages
Managing Member James H. Rumph is a Certified Valuation Analyst (CVA) and serves as an economic damages expert witness for a wide variety of litigation (e.g., business partner and contract disputes, defamation, and class actions).
Representative Matters
Breach of Title Insurance Contract Economic Damages Rebuttal
Mr. Rumph prepared alternate economic damage calculations rebutting damage calculations prepared by the plaintiff’s retained expert, helping lead to a pre-trial settlement.
Defamation Economic Damages Rebuttal
A doctor in residence was terminated after allegations were provided to the mutual employer. Mr. Rumph identified significant flaws in the plaintiff’s expert witness report, which caused a significant overstatement of damages.
Asset Tracing
Mr. Rumph has been a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) for over 18 years and a Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE) for over 19 years and has experience tracing commingled assets for a variety of types of matters (e.g., separate property as part of marital dissolution, tainted funds for criminal cases related to asset forfeiture, etc.).
Representative Matters
Commissions Embezzlement Tracing Resulting in Real Estate Forfeiture
Mr. Rumph served as forensic accountant for a case in which an insurance company employee was convicted for embezzling approximately $6 million. Early in the investigation, Mr. Rumph completed tracing of embezzled funds to real estate purchases and prepared an affidavit in support of a motion for temporary restraining order to prevent the properties from being sold that was approved. After the employee pled guilty, the properties were seized and proceeds provided to the victim company as part of a partial recovery.
Tracing of Pre-Marital Stock & Real Estate as Separate Property
Mr. Rumph traced and analyzed both premarital-owned company stock and residence equity from over 20 years prior and their related growth. This tracing and analysis resulted in millions of dollars of property that had experienced significant growth being excluded from marital property division.
Accounting
Mr. Rumph has been a CPA for over 18 years, earned a Master of Accounting degree, has been a financial statement auditor and tax preparer, and serves as an accounting expert witness for litigation (e.g., disputes between shareholders, partners, and members and class actions).
Representative Matters
Shared Service Agreement Accounting Expert Witness
Mr. Rumph provided an expert report highlighting the benefits of related entity shared services arrangements and related accounting and how the arrangement impacted revenue collections as part of a class action lawsuit, which helped lead to a pre-trial settlement.
Real Estate Investment Partnership Owner Alleged Loan Expert Witness
Mr. Rumph provided a rebuttal expert report and deposition for a dispute between real estate investment partners, showing that an alleged loan was more likely than not actually related to services provided. The case was resolved with a settlement agreement reached during trial.
Disputed Ownership in Entities Expert Witness
Mr. Rumph has prepared expert reports on cases where limited documentation was available to identify whether an individual maintained an ownership interest.
Fraud Prevention & Detection
Mr. Rumph has been a CFE for over 19 years and served as a fraud risk management executive for a Fortune 100 financial services enterprise. He has worked with Fortune 100 organizations and closely held businesses, providing expert fraud prevention consulting.
Representative Matter
Reasonableness of Embezzlement Victim Company’s Internal Controls
Mr. Rumph prepared an expert report that included opinions as to the reasonableness of an embezzlement victim company’s fraud prevention and detection internal controls.