New York Forensic Economics Expert Services

In the Supreme Court of each county, in personal injury, medical malpractice and wrongful death actions; in the Court of Claims, where the claim runs against New York State; and in the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York in federal employment and wrongful termination matters, with the Northern and Western Districts covering the rest of the state. New York's state page sets out the core counties, their courthouses and the federal district that covers each.

For an injured person, the earnings lost to date, the earning capacity lost through the expected worklife, the fringe benefits attached to those earnings, the household services lost and the cost of the life care plan; for a decedent, the earnings, benefits and household services the household would have received, net of the decedent's own consumption; for a person wrongfully terminated, the earnings and benefits lost until comparable work is expected to be found, with the mitigation the record shows.

Year by year. Each year's loss is projected from the person's documented earnings and benefits with an earnings growth assumption, carried through the worklife the published tables support and discounted to the valuation date with a rate drawn from government data; the report names each assumption and its source, and its sensitivity analysis shows how the total responds when any one of them is moved across its reasonable range.

At the replacement cost of the hours the person can no longer perform, with the hours taken from the household's own division of work and checked against published time-use data, and the cost taken from published wage data for the occupations that would replace the work in the person's region. The method is described on the loss of household services practice page, and the site's household services valuator applies it.

The roster's credentialed economists, listed with their credentials on the forensic economics practice page. Each report names its author and lays out the method, the data and every calculation, so that the opposing economist can rerun the figures and cross-examination can go to the assumptions rather than the arithmetic.

The vocational evaluation gives the post-injury earning capacity that the lost earnings and earning capacity are measured against, and the life care plan gives the care items, frequencies, durations and prices that are reduced to present value. All three reports rest on one set of records, so the economic report cites the other two instead of restating them, and a revised plan or a supplemental vocational opinion is followed by a supplemental economic analysis.

A finished report is typically 30 to 60 days from receipt of complete records. The earnings records, tax returns and benefit statements to be gathered, and whether the analysis waits on a vocational opinion or a life care plan, set the timing inside that range; a rush timeline is arranged case by case when counsel asks for it at engagement.

New York matters are accepted at the KWVRS headquarters in Hackensack, New Jersey, for plaintiff and defense counsel alike, with the same method and the same published data whichever side retains the analysis; KWVRS also maintains a Richmond, Virginia office. The report is organized to the disclosure requirements of the forum in which the matter is pending.