Forensic Economist in Boston, MA

The Suffolk County Superior Court at the Suffolk County Courthouse on Pemberton Square, in the personal injury, wrongful death, medical malpractice and employment actions in which KWVRS's economic evidence is offered; the Boston Municipal Court Department, which by its page has civil matters before it for the City of Boston and the Town of Winthrop; the Boston divisional office of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts at the John Joseph Moakley U.S. Courthouse in a federal matter; the Suffolk Probate and Family Court where a support question has an economic component; and the Department of Industrial Accidents in a disputed workers' compensation claim. Attorneys confirm the governing rule for their case.

The person's own tax, payroll and benefit records first. Where a Boston work history must be priced to a market, the wages come from the Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics program of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, whose metropolitan area estimates list the Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH area, and the report names that area. Benefit costs the employer's records do not show come from the bureau's Employer Costs for Employee Compensation program, which by its page measures the average employer cost per employee hour worked for wages and salaries and for benefits. No figure is restated here without its source.

In a wrongful death matter, the earnings, benefits and household services the decedent would have provided, less the decedent's personal consumption, reduced to present value with a worklife expectancy from published tables and growth and discount rates from government series. In an employment matter, the earnings and benefits lost from the termination to the date comparable work is expected, which may rest on a vocational opinion about the Boston labor market. Each input is stated with its source and the report shows how the total moves as each is varied.

The economists on the KWVRS roster, set out with their credentials on the forensic economics practice page; every report names its author. A complete report is typically 30 to 60 days from receipt of complete records, the timing inside that range turning on the tax returns, payroll records and benefit statements to be collected and on whether the analysis waits for a vocational opinion or a life care plan. A Suffolk County Superior Court or federal disclosure deadline is met by fixing the schedule at engagement.

No. Plaintiff and defense counsel receive one analysis from one set of records, tables and series whichever side retains it, and the opposing economist can rerun every figure, so cross-examination goes to the assumptions. The answer may be a smaller loss than the claim asserts or none at all. A rebuttal engagement reads an opposing economist's report against the same records and states each difference of data, assumption or method with its effect on the total.