The firm offers a complete range of analytic and expert services to attorneys, courts, corporate and public agency law departments, insurers and others who need work products and presentations.

Law & Insurance

Ten Questions to Conjure With:

1. In the Dalkon Shield litigation, where did the Federal District Court get the estimate of the value of 320,000 unresolved claims that it accepted, and the Circuit Court affirmed, enabling A.H. Robins to emerge from bankruptcy?
2. When Halliburton Corporation recently announced the estimated value of its asbestos liability as against its insurance coverage, a move which the Wall Street Journal credited with triggering a large upsurge in its stock price, where did this authoritative estimate come from?
3. In the Agent Orange litigation, who did the alternative venue surveys and jury research which, as reported by the New York Post, led the lead defendant to agree to a settlement that has since been acclaimed as one of the wisest financial decisions in mass tort history?
4. In the silicone implant litigation, who were the chief analysts and estimators for the lead parent corporation of the bankrupt defendant, helping to shape all aspects of the settlement and reorganization plan?
5. Who first suggested - in 1982 - the concept of a common claim facility to deal with the flood of mass tort claims at the lowest possible overhead cost, which has since become the standard response to this kind of challenge?
6. Who served as the California Superior Court's Referee in the single land use case involving more than one-quarter of all the parcels in the City of Los Angeles?
7. Who was Chief Consultant to the Governor's Advisory Commission on Liability Insurance that rewrote New York State tort and insurance law?
8. Who served as the Special Monitors of the California Superior Court for the Los Angeles school desegregation case, the case involving the largest school district ever subjected to a general Court Order on desegregation?
9. Who did the analytic work and headed the negotiating team for the Federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation in the largest corporate bankruptcy it had faced as a guarantor?
10. Who developed the industry standard tools for tracking and improving insurance professionals' skills in valuing and negotiating bodily injury claims?

The answer to all ten questions, and many more like them, is HR&A. Over 25 years of continuous involvement in law and insurance-related consulting of many varieties, HR&A has emerged as one of a handful of firms most looked to by seasoned litigating and negotiating counsel, courts, insurance executives and public officials for analytics of the quality necessary to withstand the most intense scrutiny, whether on or off the witness stand.

The firm offers a complete range of analytic and expert services to attorneys, courts, corporate and public agency law departments, insurers and others who need work products and presentations which meet this exacting standard. The firm and its individual Partners have been qualified by courts as experts in a wide variety of fields, and have worked at one time or another with most of the law firms in the AmLaw 100, as well as many smaller firms. While its Law and Insurance-Related Practice is very diverse, HR&A specializes in complex cases requiring multi-disciplinary and multi-functional support. The following are the firm's nine core service areas:

• Mass tort-related value estimation and associated services; HR&A has been very prominent in both individual and class action litigation involving asbestos, Agent Orange, the Dalkon Shield, silicone implants, tobacco, and other sources of huge lawsuit volume. Having initiated the concept of a single facility to resolve toxic tort claims in a landmark report on asbestos litigation, HR&A has been deeply involved in creation and operation of several of the Trusts created to deal with such claims.
• Bankruptcy and securities-related analysis and negotiating services; Several of HR&A's major engagements have been in a bankruptcy context, whether caused by projected mass tort liability, or conventional business failure, or such exotic circumstances as the bankruptcy of one of the nation's largest medical schools. The firm has also provided expert services on asset valuation in a variety of involved securities issues, as well as on behalf of investment banks considering the purchase of shares of troubled companies.
• Public policy-related litigation services; HR&A has rendered expert analytic services in many major public sector litigation and arbitration contexts, where its clients have been counsel representing Federal, State or local governments, parties bringing actions against governments, parties to regulatory proceedings, or private groups seeking to influence public policy decisions.
• Voting rights and other discrimination-related case analysis and expert services; HR&A has played a leading analytic and expert witness role in landmark cases brought under the Federal Voting Rights Act, from Houston, to Cincinnati, to numerous California jurisdictions where much first impression voting rights case law has been made. No counsel has ever lost a voting rights case in which he/she engaged HR&A's expert services. The firm has also done expert analysis and testimony in cases brought under anti-discrimination laws dealing with housing, minority employment, and other such problems.
• Remedy-phase services to courts; HR&A Partners rank among the relatively few non-attorneys whom courts have named Referee or Special Monitor in civil actions of landmark size and importance. These assignments have come in fields as diverse as land use and school desegregation, as well as in toxic torts. The firm has also served as designated Expert for several courts, both Federal and State.
• Regulatory proceedings-related services; The firm has worked extensively in the context of proceedings of regulatory bodies governing such areas as land use, water rights, annexation/secession, military base reuse, cable television franchising, environmental protection, medical quality assurance, property/casualty insurance, downtown and neighborhood redevelopment, rent stabilization, and international claims.
• Law reform-related services; HR&A has organized and led the staffs of official and private Commissions which contributed to major changes in the tort law of both California and New York, while also performing major policy-related research in many other States. The firm's work has also been instrumental in changes in the law governing numerous other activities.
• Law-related institution building services; HR&A has prepared the feasibility studies underlying substantive research and organizational designs of new institutions which have become important assets of the legal system. Examples include the nation's leading source of dispassionate, empirically-based research on the civil justice system, the primary source of such research on the Workers' Compensation system, and the country's most generously endowed State-based public policy research organization.
• Claim valuation and negotiation practice analysis; HR&A developed the DATACLAIM, CLAIMWORTH and HARMWORTH tools for analyzing how claim professionals reach their valuations and then perform the negotiations which determine how much each claim is actually worth. These systems have been applied to the total claim staffs of a number of major property/casualty insurers and non-insurer claim handlers as both diagnostic and training tools.

These summary descriptions of the firm's core service areas suggest the breadth and depth of the Practice. The following pages provide more detailed descriptions of the examples provided in the course of compiling the firm's extensive track record in each core area.