Carlyn Irwin

Carlyn Irwin is an economic damages and forensic accounting expert with over thirty years of expert witness and litigation consulting experience. Ms. Irwin specializes in intellectual property (IP) matters, including trade secret misappropriation and patent, copyright, and trademark issues. She also has extensive expertise in breach of contract/tort claims, forensic accounting analyses, and investigations. At trial, she has testified multiple times on IP damages, with a focus on trade secret disputes.

In addition to her expertise in calculating damages, Ms. Irwin has extensive forensic accounting experience. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has retained her to analyze financial records in matters involving flow of funds, potential asset misappropriation, and Ponzi schemes. She has provided expert testimony in federal, state, and international courts and arbitration settings.

Lexology Index (formerly Who’s Who Legal) has recognized Ms. Irwin as a leading forensic accountant in the legal investigations space, describing her as “extremely thoughtful” and citing her “detail-oriented approach” and “meticulous analysis.”

A certified public accountant (CPA) and certified fraud examiner (CFE), Ms. Irwin is also certified in financial forensics, certified in entity and intangible valuations, and accredited in business valuation.

Intellectual property damages

Ms. Irwin has testified on damages in dozens of matters, including federal trials, arbitrations, and depositions that span the full range of IP claims, including trade secret misappropriation and patent, copyright, and trademark infringement. Her IP industry experience spans consumer and retail products, life sciences, media and entertainment, and technology.

Ms. Irwin estimates and rebuts alleged lost profits, unjust enrichment, and reasonable royalty damages claims. She also analyzes loss causation, apportionment, and “most favored licensee” issues. Her experience includes:

• Analyzing patent and trade secret damages under Georgia-Pacific, Panduit, and University Computing
• Valuing intangible assets such as patents, trade secrets, trademarks, assembled workforces, non-competition provisions, and client relationships
• Isolating the incremental value of the asserted IP through apportionment and “head start” analyses
• Consulting on licensing programs and pre-litigation patent matters

Trade secret damages

Ms. Irwin has testified extensively on trade secret damages issues, including matters involving apparel, commercial real estate services, custom manufacturing, enterprise and software as a service (SaaS) platforms, power-delivery systems, radio-frequency devices, retail, and semiconductors.

Both plaintiffs and defendants have retained Ms. Irwin, and she works with counsel from early case assessment through trial. A recurring focus of Ms. Irwin’s work is apportionment—isolating the value of the information alleged to be secret and testing whether an opposing expert’s model reliably ties damages to the trade secrets at issue. Her work includes:

• Providing deposition and trial testimony to rebut “head start” and unjust enrichment damages models, including alternative calculations under multiple scenarios
• Analyzing reasonable royalty and development-cost measures and valuing allegedly misappropriated confidential information
• Addressing apportionment and causation, including whether damages are properly limited to the trade secrets at issue rather than to broader business advantages
• Quantifying the cost of employee movement between competitors, including lost productivity and the cost of replacing key personnel

Ms. Irwin also speaks and writes about trade secret damages. She served as a panelist at the AIPLA 2025 Trade Secret Summit and has presented for the American Bar Association (ABA) on proving damages in trade secrets cases.

Breach of contract and tort claims

Ms. Irwin analyzes and testifies on loss causation and damages and performs business valuations in matters alleging breach of contract and tort causes of action, including class actions. Her experience includes issues related to fiduciary duty, product liability, alter ego, Lanham Act violations, false advertising, and unfair business competition. She has also evaluated compensatory damages and claims for statutory and restitution or disgorgement damages. Ms. Irwin has experience:

• Serving as an expert in high-profile matters involving discrimination claims, as well as allegations of aiding and abetting illegal conduct and violations of federal law
• Providing expert testimony in breach of contract litigation to rebut damages theories and calculations, including in trial testimony
• Providing affirmative and rebuttal trial testimony in calculating damages, including analysis of loss causation issues and opining on definitions of the but-for world
• Testifying in putative class action matters regarding damages at the pre-certification stage
• Analyzed liability issues in matters alleging breach of fiduciary duty and discrimination

Forensic accounting

A forensic accountant certified in financial forensics, Ms. Irwin has extensive experience with reconstructing and confirming financial records (including tax returns), reviewing them to assess consistency and reliability, and tracing transactions through corporate reporting systems. She has consulted on civil and criminal white-collar litigation, as well as matters alleging fraudulent conveyances, breach of contract, money laundering, racketeering claims under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, pyramid schemes, and fraud.

In her forensic accounting testimony, Ms. Irwin has addressed allegations related to solvency, financial misstatements, fraudulent and preferential transfers and schemes, and misappropriation of assets. Her work includes:

• Testifying at deposition and trial regarding affirmative defenses that plaintiffs had falsely reported their financial condition
• Analyzing, for multiple financial institutions, transactions allegedly used to launder money and/or facilitate fraudulent customer schemes
• Assessing companies’ solvency and the “reasonable equivalent value” of allegedly fraudulent transfers and conveyances pre-bankruptcy
• Analyzing legal fees and costs for post-judgment reimbursement by the prevailing party

Ms. Irwin’s industry experience includes consumer products, e-commerce, entertainment, financial and professional services, healthcare, life sciences, medical devices, medical services, real estate, retail, software, SaaS, sports, and technology. She works with clients and counsel in all phases of the litigation process.

Community engagement

Ms. Irwin is an active patroness and honorary lifetime member for her local chapter of the National Charity League, Inc. She previously served as president, vice president of membership and standards, treasurer, and compliance officer. She also served for four years as a member of the board of directors.