Litigation Support
Pacey & McNulty has extensive experience providing economic analyses to the legal community and is accustomed to the time constraints and demands associated with litigation. The firm houses its own library of government, professional, and trade association surveys and studies plus the related academic literature and also draws upon internet access for critical documents. Our analyses meet the highest standards of accuracy and we also anticipate and research alternative avenues of analysis that are likely to be forwarded by the opposing party. Areas of analysis include:
Labor Economics
- Projection of lost earnings, incorporating future productivity and inflationary trends in the economy, age-earnings profiles, employment opportunities of individuals with physical and/or cognitive limitations;
- Short and/or long term loss of earnings associated with termination, separation, or displaced worker issues;
- Evaluation of vocational retraining options and correlated wage opportunities, given information regarding functional and cognitive abilities;
- Personal expenditure analysis based on information from client and tracked to government surveys of family budget data;
- Valuation of household services based on review of government and academic studies and literature plus client interview information;
- Valuation of life care plans incorporating recommendations from rehabilitation and medical care specialists, health care prices and trends, interest return factors, etc.
Commercial
- Estimation of damages arising from breach of contract, patent infringement, trade secret theft, and related controversies.
- Measure lost profits associated with business interruptions and/or losses related to reasonable royalty calculations;
- Incorporate business cycles, start-up nature of businesses, potential synergies, risk factors, etc. into loss analyses;
General
- Valuation of the tax implications relating to different legal claims;
- Discounting to present value (which includes identifying the appropriate range of growth and interest rates) based on principles of economics and forecast information from private and government agencies who specialize in this area;
- Valuation of settlement proposals and assistance in settlement conferences;
- Expert witness testimony provided in state and federal courts.
Labor Economics
Labor economics is a field of specialization within economics that focuses on the demand for and supply of labor in the market place. This includes:
- The study and analysis of employment trends for different industries, earnings profiles for individuals with similar work characteristics, labor force participation rates, occupational mobility, etc.;
- The impact of education and/or impairments on earnings opportunities; the prevalence of or change in macroeconomic factors which effect overall productivity such as technological advancements;
- The value of employer provided benefits such as pension, health coverage, etc., relative to wage earnings;
- Personal consumption (expenses) decisions of individuals based on income levels, composition of family, age, education, etc.
This specialty is quite useful when managing and evaluating individuals and/or multi-clients whether for injury or employment matters. Thus, with the labor economics background, our firm can better develop the earnings profile of an individual, the likely benefits derived from certain employment patterns, and probable consumption decisions. Pacey & McNulty has a highly trained professional staff to address these topics and has accumulated hundreds of relevant articles, surveys, and studies. This information provides a more thorough understanding of labor markets and assists in our evaluations of damages in specific litigation cases, especially injury, death, employment, and occasionally commercial matters.
Business & Finance
Many companies encounter specific problems that directly or indirectly affect the way a business is managed, the level of revenues generated, and the impact on earnings and profits. Pacey & McNulty has dealt with a broad range of business and finance-related issues for both litigation disputes and non-legal matters. The following provide some examples of our experience in non-litigation business and finance matters:
- Special expertise in valuation studies, for example, cost-benefit analysis of proposed projects, evaluating comparable publicly rated companies;
- Provide theoretical foundation and empirical analysis in regulatory environments dealing with the competitive effects of regulatory decisions;
- Analyses of market conditions on business/industries;
- Provide economic advice on policy issues regarding mergers and acquisitions, diversification, and risk and returns;
- Complex economic analyses of comparability of companies and markets as well as valuation of intangibles such as patents;
- Verifications of financial projections for firms requiring independent corroboration for borrowing purposes.
Energy Research
With the addition of Dr. McNulty, the firm has expanded into the area of energy research. Our energy research emphasizes the application of economic theory to important energy topics and the econometric analysis of the resulting models. Our analyses have covered a broad spectrum of energy topics including:
- Production and cost of energy commodities including traditional fossil-based fuels and newer bio-fuels;
- Energy market demand and supply and subsequent pricing and trade;
- Consumer adoption of alternative energy souces;
- Energy impacts on other commodity (e.g. corn) production, cost, and market pricing and trade;
- Macro-economic (e.g., GNP, employment) energy impacts;
- Energy impacts on international trade and related economic measures.
Public Policy Studies
Economists and statisticians can be particularly useful in public policy projects as numerous factors make these studies complex. Economists and statisticians provide insight into these complexities including:
- Untangling multiple funding sources for programs that include tax revenue, federal grants, fees/licenses, etc. Also important is identifying funding that is highly dependent upon the fluctuations in the economy;
- Service-oriented and/or non-tangible outcomes as opposed to for-profit motivation;
- Limitations on the type and nature of expenditures;
- Special focus on identifying unintended consequences and long-term economic impacts of decisions.
Over the last decade, we have been involved in a number of interesting public policy studies. (Please see the Projects section of this website for more detail.) These studies have provided an excellent foundation for addressing the intricate details associated with public policy analyses.
Econometric Modeling
The firm has prepared statistical and econometric analyses on a number of litigation and public policy projects. Pacey & McNulty has utilized regression and statistical techniques to analyze:
- The diminution in value to residential property as a result of environment contamination such as a nearby landfill, treatment plant, or uranium mill, etc. as well as from waste and other by-products from industrial/manufacturing companies;
- The factors that impact the consumption and prices of different types of fuels (i.e., gasoline, diesel, and the newer ethanol and biomass-based diesel fuels).
- The pertinent student and school district characteristics that impact student performance;
- The prevalence of certain employee characteristics in multi-client employment related matters;
- Sales of a store when a competitor enters the a shopping center;
- The forecasting of lottery revenue.