As Nina Gerbic was leaving the Seattle-Tacoma airport baggage claim area over fifteen years ago, an attorney acquaintance approached her. He told her that she should go home and repack, because he needed her in New York immediately.
Nina's New York engagement proved to be a major, and very adversarial, involuntary bankruptcy proceeding. Her auditing skills were common knowledge, and Nina obtained the data necessary to support the bankruptcy petition despite the company's resistance and interference.
In that engagement, Nina discovered that she enjoyed the adversarial process, that her public accounting training and experience enabled her to obtain information which would probably elude others, and that she was an effective witness in her area of expertise. However, she also realized that her background failed to provide her with the tools for sophisticated application of the information that she obtained.
In response, Nina enrolled in the University of Washington for a five-year program focused on advanced mathematics and econometrics, culminating in 2000 with a Master of Economics and membership in the Omicron Delta Epsilon international economics honorary. Since then Nina has supplemented her university training with an ongoing series of specialized certification programs in financial analysis, business valuation, troubled business restructuring, fraud deterrence, economic damages, and testimony skills.
The combination of Nina’s three decades of auditing experience with her recent academic activity provide her with nearly unique capabilities. As a result, to this point her litigation support roles have been highly successful. As examples, Nina functioned as the defense accounting expert in three recent cases: the first representing a major Seattle legal firm in a professional malpractice action; a second representing an international oil company; and a third defending the prior owners of a bankrupt storage tank manufacturing company.
Very substantial sums were at risk in each of those disputes. At trial, Nina’s clients avoided damage judgments in both of the first two cases, and the damages settlement in the third case was only twenty percent of the original claim.
Our business litigation activity does not depend solely on Nina, however. Joe Dawson is a licensed attorney, and he was a member of the University of Washington Law School adjunct faculty for a period of time after he completed his LL.M. degree there. Joe and Nina recently collaborated on a plaintiff’s contractual damages expert opinion that resulted in a recovery in excess of four million dollars from an international chemical company.
Shen Liu and Hang Le both hold Masters of Professional Accounting from the University of Washington. Each also has an additional master's degree in fields directly complementary to our litigation support services: for shen, economics and for Hang, Finance. Both Joe and Eva Leung are certified in Financial Forensics by the AICPA. These personnel, as well as the remainder of our professional staff, assist Nina in her economic litigation engagements.
