Our extensive network includes top experts from academia and industry.
Our extensive network includes top experts from academia and industry.
Yeşim Orhun
Associate Professor of Marketing,
Ross School of Business;
Associate Professor,
School of Information;
University of Michigan
Yeşim Orhun is an expert in behavioral economics and quantitative marketing. Professor Orhun’s industry expertise includes consumer packaged goods, retail, consumer health, higher education, and transportation. She served four years on the board of directors for Consumer Reports.
In litigation matters involving alleged misrepresentations in consumer goods, Professor Orhun has analyzed consumer behavior and economic issues pertaining to class certification.
Professor Orhun uses experimental, survey, and econometric methods in her research, which focuses on two main areas. In one research stream, she studies how individuals construct beliefs and preferences, and the two-way relations between information acquisition and consumer choice. In another research stream, Professor Orhun studies product competition, strategic differentiation, and price discrimination. More recently, she has focused on combining these two research streams to examine the unintended consequences of policies and competitive strategies.
Professor Orhun has published articles in leading marketing and economics journals, including the American Economic Review, Journal of Marketing Research, Marketing Science, and Management Science. Her paper on consumer spending and saving practices received the Paul E. Green Award for significant contributions to marketing research, methodology, and/or practice, and was covered by The Atlantic, Business Insider, NPR, and the Washington Post.
Professor Orhun is an associate editor of the Journal of Marketing Research and the International Journal of Market Research and serves on the editorial board of Marketing Science.
At the Ross School of Business, Professor Orhun teaches courses in strategic marketing, marketing management, and causal inference to M.B.A., executive M.B.A., and Ph.D. students. Previously, she served on the faculty of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, where she taught marketing strategy and behavioral economics to M.B.A. and Ph.D. students. Professor Orhun has been recognized multiple times for excellence in teaching.
Professor Orhun is a fellow in the University of Michigan’s ADVANCE Faculty Fellows Program, in which senior Michigan academics research new approaches to institutional transformation. She is also a Michael R. and Mary Kay Hallman Fellow in the Ross School of Business.
Our extensive network includes top experts from academia and industry.
Jonah Berger
Associate Professor of Marketing,
The Wharton School,
University of Pennsylvania
Jonah Berger is a renowned expert on word of mouth, influence, consumer behavior, and how products, ideas, and behaviors are shared and disseminated. Professor Berger analyzes the impact of digital and traditional marketing, as well as social media, on consumer behavior and product demand. He specializes in using sophisticated quantitative tools, such as natural language processing and automated content analysis, to gain behavioral insights from textual data. Professor Berger has also conducted hundreds of surveys, in both academic research and consulting matters. He has been retained as an expert witness and testified in multiple depositions and at trial.
In his research, Professor Berger assesses how text in online reviews, customer service calls, press releases, marketing communications, and other interactions can be used to gain insights about the impact of marketing. He has also studied what makes certain online content go viral, the effects of negative publicity, and how assortment size influences brand perceptions and choice.
Professor Berger is the author of bestselling books on consumer behavior, including Magic Words: What to Say to Get Your Way (2023); The Catalyst: How to Change Anyone’s Mind (2020); Invisible Influence: The Hidden Forces That Shape Behavior (2016); and Contagious: Why Things Catch On (2013). Amazon cited Contagious among its Best Business Books of the Year.
Professor Berger has published over fifty articles in leading academic journals, including the Journal of Marketing and the Journal of Consumer Research. His coauthored article “What Makes Online Content Go Viral?” won Sage’s 2023 10-Year Impact Award, which recognizes articles with lasting influence in the decade since their publication. The Journal of Marketing Research also honored this article with its William F. O’Dell Award, for significant, long-term contribution to marketing theory, methodology, and/or practice.
The American Management Association named Professor Berger one of the top thirty leaders in business. He has consulted to major tech firms, global retailers, and leading nonprofit organizations.
Professor Berger has served on the editorial boards of Marketing Science and the Journal of Consumer Psychology, among others. In the mainstream media, the New York Times, the New York Times Magazine’s “Year in Ideas,” and Harvard Business Review have covered his research.
At the Wharton School, Professor Berger has received multiple awards for excellence in research and teaching. He has taught courses on consumer behavior and marketing management; his course on viral marketing ranks among the most in-demand on Wharton Online.
Before joining the Wharton School, Professor Berger held visiting academic appointments at Cornell NYC Tech, Cornell University, and Fuqua School of Business, Duke University.
Our extensive network includes top experts from academia and industry.
Kinshuk Jerath
Arthur F. Burns Chair of Free and Competitive Enterprise,
Professor of Business in the Marketing Division,
Columbia Business School,
Columbia University
Kinshuk Jerath specializes in technology-enabled marketing, primarily in online advertising, retailing, and customer management. Professor Jerath’s research has evaluated a range of strategic online advertising practices in both sponsored search advertising and display advertising, including keyword management, poaching, and exclusive placement. He has also analyzed how privacy regulations in the online advertising ecosystem affect stakeholders, such as advertisers, publishers, and consumers.
Professor Jerath’s research on retailing has contributed to the understanding of agency selling in online retailing marketplaces, as well as the associated behaviors of third-party sellers, advertisers, and platform owners. In his work on customer management, Professor Jerath has developed analytical methods to estimate customer lifetime value for online and traditional retailers.
Professor Jerath has served as an expert on online advertising and retailing, and provided expert testimony in deposition and at trial. Outside of litigation, he has consulted to Fortune 500 companies on online marketing.
Professor Jerath’s work has been published in books, as well as articles in leading journals, including Marketing Science, Management Science, the Journal of Marketing Research, and the Journal of Interactive Marketing. He also serves on several editorial boards. Professor Jerath speaks widely on subjects related to online advertising and retailing marketplaces, and has presented to universities and corporations in the United States, United Kingdom, Europe, and Hong Kong.
At Columbia Business School, Professor Jerath teaches courses on digital marketing and customer valuation and management. Previously, he served on the faculty of the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University.
Our extensive network includes top experts from academia and industry.
Justin McCrary
Paul J. Evanson Professor of Law,
Columbia Law School;
Senior Advisor, Cornerstone Research
Justin McCrary is a leading expert on statistical methods and economic modeling, with a focus on antitrust and competition, labor, and consumer product matters. Professor McCrary has testified on class certification, antitrust, labor, and statistics issues. His wide-ranging experience covers numerous industries and markets, such as automotive, commodities, technology, healthcare, life sciences, finance, telecommunications, and retail.
Antitrust and competition
Professor McCrary testifies in complex antitrust and competition matters in various industries. His experience includes:
- In a significant matter in a high-tech industry, he addressed allegations of a conspiracy to fix prices and also analyzed and rebutted an opposing expert’s damages model. In another matter, he analyzed damages resulting from alleged collusion among pharmacies.
- On behalf of a global food and agriculture corporation, Professor McCrary evaluated an alleged conspiracy to manipulate wheat futures and options contracts.
- Professor McCrary has experience in multiple large and complex antitrust class actions involving financial markets. For example, he addressed statistical sampling of alleged cartel communications in In re Foreign Exchange Benchmark Rates Antitrust Litigation.
- Professor McCrary rebutted damages in a case alleging that a large software provider maintained its monopoly position through anticompetitive practices, including exclusionary contracting. The client prevailed in a confidential arbitration proceeding.
- Professor McCrary has provided testimony in antitrust matters involving intellectual property. For example, in Palm Beach Tanning Inc. et al. v. Sunless Inc., an antitrust counterclaim filed in response to a trademark case, he analyzed Section 1 and 2 tying allegations and issues related to the Robinson-Patman Act.
- In the telecommunications industry, Professor McCrary served as a consulting expert for the U.S. Department of Justice in its review of AT&T’s acquisition of T-Mobile.
Labor
Professor McCrary has wide-ranging labor markets expertise. His representative experience includes:
- Professor McCrary provided testimony in two seminal no-poach litigation matters involving the McDonald’s and Jimmy John’s franchises. In both matters, he analyzed the potential procompetitive benefits of the challenged clauses and opined on class certification issues. Class certification was denied in both cases, with both U.S. district court judges relying on Professor McCrary’s analyses in their opinions.
- Professor McCrary testified on class certification issues in a high-profile gender discrimination case focused on pay and promotion outcomes at a large U.S. retailer. The judge subsequently denied certification of the plaintiffs’ proposed class.
- Defense counsel retained Professor McCrary to analyze merits and damages issues in Morgan et al. v. U.S. Soccer Federation Inc., a gender pay discrimination class action. Citing Professor McCrary’s expert report in his order, the judge ruled in favor of the defendant’s motion for summary judgment.
- Defense counsel in Robinson et al. v. Jackson Hewitt Inc. and Tax Services of America retained Professor McCrary to analyze allegations that franchise no-poaching agreements restricted mobility and suppressed compensation.
Consumer fraud and product liability
Professor McCrary has testified in multiple matters alleging product liability, false advertising, and breach of contract. For example, in Beaty v. Ford Motor Company, a product liability matter involving alleged automotive defects, he provided class certification and damages rebuttal testimony.
Serving as an expert in high-profile consumer class actions, Professor McCrary has conducted empirical analyses and provided testimony on issues related to causation, liability, and damages. He has also rebutted damages models using a variety of empirical techniques, including conjoint analysis and hedonic regressions.
Statistical methods and analysis
The founding director of the Social Sciences Data Laboratory (D-Lab) at the University of California, Berkeley, Professor McCrary is an authority on high-performance computing and statistical techniques.
He has testified on sampling, probability theory, and statistical methods. In the closely watched matter, In Re Twitter Inc. v. Elon Musk et al., he was retained to address allegations regarding the statistical sampling methods employed by Twitter in analyzing spam and fake accounts.
Professor McCrary has examined the statistical evidence for healthcare providers’ alleged overbilling of Medicare in both government audit and False Claims Act (FCA) matters. He also has substantial experience with mortgage-backed securities matters, including rebuttals to analyses invoking matching estimators.
Research and teaching
Professor McCrary publishes research on econometric methods, including on measuring damages in antitrust litigation. In addition, his scholarship covers a wide range of topics, including employment discrimination, high-frequency trading, financial market structure, and monetary policy. A prolific author and coauthor, his work has appeared in leading journals, including the American Economic Review, the Journal of Econometrics, and the Review of Economics and Statistics. Professor McCrary is a faculty research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER).
Before joining Columbia University, Professor McCrary taught at the School of Law at the University of California, Berkeley.
Consumer Fraud and Product Liability Capabilities
Cornerstone Research has addressed issues of certification, exposure, reliance, impact, and damages in class actions. Key questions in these cases may include whether common evidence can prove that certain challenged conduct caused each member of the proposed class to make a purchase and whether the challenged conduct injured each member of the proposed class. An additional consideration is whether each proposed class member’s damages, if any, can be determined by common proof. We have worked on class actions involving allegations of:
- The benefit of the bargain harm, where plaintiffs claim that consumers would have allegedly paid less or not purchased the product at issue had they not allegedly been misled or had defendants not acted in in bad faith, because of improper labeling, advertising, or disclosure
- Diminished resale value of a durable good due to the challenged conduct
- Demand and price inflation claims that plaintiffs argue caused class-wide impact, even for consumers who were not influenced by the challenged conduct
Class certification in these cases frequently turns on the particulars of the challenged conduct, the overall structure of the industry and the market, and the characteristics of individual transactions. We evaluate these issues through empirical research within a framework of sound economic concepts.
Individual actions involving allegations of fraud and misrepresentation are often brought by a defendant’s competitors. These cases may require a focus on the relevant market, quantification of the effect of the challenged conduct on demand and prices for competing products, and estimation of damages suffered by competitors due to the defendant’s alleged fraud or misrepresentation.
In addition to lost sales and price erosion, some plaintiffs may also seek reputational damages and punitive damages. We have substantial experience analyzing these specific types of claims, applying our expertise in economics, marketing, finance, econometrics, and accounting.
Our experience in individual actions includes allegations of fraud and misrepresentation in matters involving a broad array of industries and consumer products.
Cornerstone Research staff and experts have significant experience in survey design, including analyzing and implementing reliable sampling techniques. We regularly conduct and critique surveys of market participants to assess consumer behavior, attitudes, and preferences, and to address issues relating to exposure, reliance, and materiality. In some cases, we supplemented these empirical findings with analysis of data originally collected over the course of business as well as from publicly available data sources.
Cornerstone Research regularly formulates and implements empirical analyses to respond to economic and financial issues. We have specialized staff with expertise in advanced modeling and statistical techniques, including difference-in-differences, hedonic regression, and synthetic control methods, among others. We frequently use real-world, large datasets with sophisticated statistical and econometric methods.
We have experience working with experts to develop and implement rigorous, state-of-the-art content analysis techniques—including artificial intelligence and machine learning—to assess marketing messages (such as advertisements), social media and user-generated online content, and other content involving extensive textual data, such as public press spanning many years.
Conjoint analysis is a survey-based marketing research tool developed by academics to understand and estimate consumer preferences. It has been adopted by businesses and industry practitioners to help make decisions on new product development and market segmentation analysis, among other uses. Over the last several years, conjoint analysis has been increasingly proposed as a method to estimate class-wide damages in a variety of consumer class actions including product liability, false advertising, product labeling, and data privacy and data breach matters. However, the technique’s underlying assumptions and limitations render it unsuitable for calculating damages in a class action setting.
Automobile
Cornerstone Research has rich experience in analyzing causation, impact, and damages issues in the automobile industry. We have addressed allegations of benefit of the bargain harm and diminished resale value in these cases.
Consumer Finance
We have worked on consumer finance cases involving credit cards, checking accounts, and pension plan choices. Our experience encompasses fraud and misrepresentation allegations as well as deceptive advertising and inadequate disclosure claims.
Food, Beverage, and Dietary Supplements
In the food, beverage, and dietary supplements industries, Cornerstone Research has applied economic and statistical methods and marketing research techniques such as surveys to cases involving allegations of false advertising, omissions of material information, and product misrepresentation. We have worked on matters involving “All Natural” claims on product labels, health-related claims on product packaging and advertising, the amount of “slack-fill” in product packaging, the amounts of ingredients included in a product, and comparative advertising between competing products, among others.
Life Sciences and Healthcare
We have worked on several cases involving allegations of fraud and misrepresentation in life sciences and healthcare matters.
Technology
In several technology and manufacturing cases, attorneys have retained Cornerstone Research to analyze issues related to alleged false advertising, deception, product liability, and demand and price inflation.
Other Consumer Products
Our staff have assessed allegations of false advertising, deception, and product liability in many consumer products.
Data Privacy and Data Breach
Cornerstone Research has experience in high-profile data privacy and data breach matters, addressing a wide range of damages methodologies and analyses commonly used by plaintiffs in class actions in the United States.
Our experience covers all stages of litigation, including pre-litigation assessment of exposure, support for mediation, and expert testimony support at the class certification and merits phases. We also have substantial experience assisting clients in regulatory proceedings relating to data privacy or data breach issues in the United States and Europe.
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Our staff consultants contribute expertise in economics, finance, accounting, and marketing, as well as business acumen, familiarity with the litigation process, and a commitment to provide outstanding support.
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