Ethics Consultants: 6

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:

Ernest N. Charlesworth, MD, is a Diplomate of the American Board of Dermatology, the American Board of Internal Medicine, American Board of Allergy & Immunology, and the American Board of Diagnostic Laboratory Immunology. He has over 40 years of experience in his field of expertise.

Dr. Charlesworth is one of only a few United States physicians who is board certified in both Allergy / Immunology and Dermatology. Well-versed in his area of expertise, he has published over 50 peer-reviewed articles, several textbook chapters, and two textbooks. He has been honored by the American College of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology for both Distinguished Service and as a Distinguished Fellow.

Dr. Charlesworth offers litigation support, except independent medical examinations, to attorneys representing both Plaintiff and Defense. He has been deposed and/or testified approximately 15 times since 2010. His services include issues of causation and standard of care. Dr. Charlesworth has completed the National Catholic Certification Program in Health Care Ethics. He retired from active medical practice in May of 2014 but continues to be active in academic medicine.

Areas of Expertise:

A senior clinical faculty member at Harvard Medical School, Harold J. Bursztajn, M.D., is active in patient care in medical, psychiatric and judicial education nationally. He is qualified in both state and federal courts and is nationally recognized as a distinguished impartial, clinical, ethical and forensic expert to P/D attorneys and institutions. Individual and multispecialty team consultations available.

• Informed Consent & Malpractice
• Employment Litigation: ADA, Disability, Sexual Misconduct Discrimination, Worker's Compensation
• Emotional & Physical Damages: Conscious Pain & Suffering, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Neuropsychiatry & Pain Imaging
• Standards For Experts
• Product Liability: Medical Devices & Pharmaceuticals, Toxic Tort
• Criminal Justice & Public Safety: Diminished Capacity, Drug Addiction, Competency to Confess, Death Penalty Mitigation, Workplace Safety
• Family & Custody Issues
• Testamentary & Contractual Capacity
• Professional & Organizational Ethics: Patient Care, Managed Care, Privacy
• Psychoanalysis & Cultural Perspectives

Attorney, Lawrence H. Jacobson received his Bachelor's degree in political science in 1964 from U.C.L.A and his Juris Doctorate in 1967 from the U.C.L.A. School of Law. While at the U.C.L.A. School of Law, Mr. Jacobson was a senior editor of the U.C.L.A. Law Review and graduated as a member of the Order of the Coif. 

Mr. Jacobson is the former Vice-President of Legal Affairs for the California Association of Realtors, legal counsel to several Boards of Realtors, California Counsel to an international real estate brokerage firm, and legal counsel to numerous mortgage brokerage firms and related real estate service providers. He is also a Past President of the Beverly Hills Bar Association. He has served as a judge pro tem for the Los Angeles and Beverly Hills Municipal Court Systems as well as having been an adjunct professor of law in the area of real estate secured transactions and administrative law, earning a lifetime Community College Instructor Credential in the area of Law.

Legal Practice - In his 50 years of practice, Mr. Jacobson has counseled and represented both private and publically held clients in the following:

• Selection of Business Entities
• Formation and Restructure of Corporations
• Partnerships and Limited Liability Companies
• Purchase and Sale of Business
• Succession Planning
• General Advice on Finance, Employment, Intellectual Property, Taxation, Antitrust, and Securities Laws

Lawrence Jacobson has written and lectured extensively on business, real estate and ethics related matters including having taught for the U.S.C. Broker Development Program and Graduate Realtors Institute of the California Association of Realtors, as well as having lectured for the California Continuing Education of the Bar, and is the recipient of the California Continuing Education of the Bar's 2011 "Spirit of CEB" Award.

View Lawrence Jacobson's Expert Witness Profile.

GRANT D. STIEFEL, ESQ.

• Grant D. Stiefel, Esq. is a nationally-recognized, full time attorney fee consultant, testifying expert and the principal of Litigation Limited, a boutique legal fee consulting firm
• Mr. Stiefel has testified in nearly 100 lawsuits, including matters in federal district courts, California trial courts, JAMS/AAA arbitrations, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, State Bar courts, and attorney-client fee arbitrations
• He has qualified to testify and has testified live at trials and arbitrations as a designated attorney fee expert
• Mr. Stiefel’s methodology for reviewing, auditing and evaluating legal invoices has been cited, approved and adopted by California state and federal courts
• He has been retained as a testifying attorney fee expert by the world’s largest law firms, including Reed Smith; McDermott Will and Emery; Jones Day; Sheppard Mullin; Sidely Austin; Dykema Gossett; Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe; and Littler Mendelson, among many others
• Mr. Stiefel is a member of the California State Bar and is unique among fee experts in that he practiced law for many years at two of the world’s largest law firms (Akin Gump and K&L Gates)
• Mr. Stiefel has managed a multi-billion dollar litigation portfolio and has audited hundreds of millions of dollars in legal fees from law firms nationwide since 2008 
• He has developed and implemented outside counsel billing and case management guidelines for Fortune 500 corporations
• He is a California State Bar-approved continuing legal education instructor on attorneys’ fees who has trained hundreds of executives and in-house counsel from a host of Fortune 500 corporations
• Mr. Stiefel is qualified as an attorney-client fee dispute arbitrator with the California State Bar’s Mandatory Fee Arbitration program and as a judge pro tem with the California Superior Court for the County of Los Angeles

SAMPLE ENGAGEMENTS

• Grant Stiefel was the testifying fee expert on a series of fee applications by class counsel in Jones v. Wells Fargo, on behalf of aggrieved California consumers in the first consumer class action brought under the Unruh Act.  Relying upon Mr. Stiefel's testimony regarding the reasonableness of hourly rates and overall work performed, the trial court awarded more than $25 million in attorneys' fees to class counsel
• The district court for the Central District of California adopted and approved Mr. Stiefel's methodology for identifying and quantifying block-billed, vague and redacted billing entries in cutting Plaintiff's fee request by more than sixty percent in CNS v. Planet, from $4.8 million to $1.9 million
• In Vides v. ABM Janitorial Services, the trial court reduced Plaintiff's fee request in a FEHA action by over $1 million based upon Grant Stiefel's expert testimony.  Plaintiff moved for an award of $1,578,232.50 in attorneys' fees, which the trial court reduced to $544,183.12.  Mr. Stiefel's testimony showed that the hourly rates claimed by Plaintiff's counsel were unreasonable under the circumstances, that excessive time was spent on inter-office communications, and that the matter was overstaffed

View Grant Stiefel's Expert Witness Profile.

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.