Dr. Francine F. Rabinovitz

Dr. Francine F. Rabinovitz is Executive Vice President of HR&A and based in the Los Angeles office. In addition to her expertise in public policy analysis and research, she ranks among the nation's best known expert analysts and witnesses in the estimation, valuation, and administrative/financial management of mass tort claims and trusts. She has also directed much of the firm's work in economic and fiscal impact analysis of major land development projects.

Dr. Rabinovitz has produced, presented and defended in cross-examination some of the most authoritative and decisive valuations in the history of mass tort litigation. For example, her testimony presenting the HR&A estimate of the value of more than 320,000 unresolved Dalkon Shield claims in the A.H. Robins bankruptcy - which was one of six widely varying estimates presented by experts for opposing parties - was cited approvingly by name in the Opinion of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals affirming the District Court's establishment of a value very close to the HR&A estimate. When the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal from that ruling, Robins quickly emerged from bankruptcy and was very profitably sold. Dr. Rabinovitz is currently a Court-appointed expert in the Owens Corning, W.R. Grace, Johns Manville and U.S. Gypsum asbestos-caused bankruptcies, as well as a consultant on estimation of asbestos claims for such solvent companies as Dow Chemical Corporation and Honeywell Inc. She previously played similar roles in the Celotex Corporation bankruptcy and for Dyncorp in the Fuller-Austin Corporation bankruptcy. She has also directed the firm's own claim handling operations, such as the "Breland" claims facility it operated for the Dalkon Shield Trust and the Expedited Claim Processing program it established for the Celotex Trust.

She is also a very experienced witness and Court officer in other types of cases. She was, for example, the Court's Referee in the Los Angeles General Plan case, which involved the rezoning of 300,000 land parcels - about 60% of all the parcels in the City. She and Edward Hamilton were the Court's Special Monitors for planning and overseeing implementation of its desegregation Orders governing the Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation's second largest school system. Rabinovitz also did substantial expert analysis in the Great Lakes Fisheries litigation in the Los Angeles General Plan case, one of the largest and most bitterly fought cases decided by the Federal Courts. She has appeared in numerous Federal and State Courts and undergone many depositions, earning a reputation for lucid, painstakingly documented, jargon free communication of technical work of the superb quality necessary to stand up under any level of adverse scrutiny.

Rabinovitz began her career in successive faculty positions at Rutgers University, the University of Florida, UCLA, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of Southern California. She was a tenured Professor at each of the last three of these institutions. She holds a B.A. from Cornell University and a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is currently Emerita Professor in the School of Policy, Planning, and Development at the University of Southern California. She was the recipient (with Hamilton) of the 1981 James E. Webb Urban Research Award from the National Academy of Public Administration (of which both she and Hamilton are elected members), and she is a former member of the Board of the Academy.

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