Michael Phelan

Mike’s recent disputes and expert witness experience includes:

• Led hundreds of information security data analysis and mining investigations involving the potential compromise of sensitive data. Incidents include network breaches, email compromise cases, physical theft of computer equipment, and active employees’ misuse of data. Utilized data analytics and programming tools to identify potentially exposed health information and personally identifiable information resident within email accounts, computers, and servers. Assisted organizations with reporting requirements by preparing lists of potentially exposed individuals and the specific information identified. Worked closely with counsel to summarize potential exposure by type and by affected states of residence.
• Assisted numerous large financial institutions in the defense of class action lawsuits alleging improper assessment of consumer checking account overdraft fees. Gained detailed knowledge of checking account systems and data, as well as industry practices related to checking accounts and transaction posting practices. Worked with bank personnel to obtain secure extracts of transaction data, exception processing, and other relevant data sets. Managed teams’ use of complex algorithms to replicate the bank’s transaction posting process and to re-post all transactions under various scenarios. Analyzed the impact of transaction re- sequencing scenarios on overdraft fees. Created aggregate analyses and reported findings on several matters. Effectively utilized experience and expertise to assist banks in rebutting plaintiffs’ proposed damages in order to achieve settlements.
• In defense of both telecommunications companies and other companies related to TCPA violation allegations, performed telephone call record data collection production services, data analytics services, and an assessment of available data in the client’s computing systems to determine whether it was possible to identify individuals/phone numbers meeting the definition of the purported classes. Performed an assessment of plaintiff expert reports regarding data analysis methodologies to identify purported class members. Worked to differentiate land lines versus cell phone calls, performing analysis of his client’s call records in comparison to independent third-party data.
• Managed the efforts of a small team to assist one of eight healthcare insurance companies in their defense against provider class action lawsuits. Acquired hundreds of gigabytes of data produced to the plaintiffs. Developed standardized database tables that contained consistent data elements with the other seven health care companies in the case. Performed quality control of the programs developed by contract employees. Created detailed documentation outlining the process and intricacies of standardizing the tables for each region. Performed extensive analyses of the data in relation to liability and damages issues brought forth in the case.
• Designed two SQL Server databases used to defend large healthcare companies being sued by providers for improper bundling of claims, improper downcoding of claims, failing to make timely payments to providers, and other issues. Received numerous and varied methods of source data and documentation media delivery. Sent revised file layouts to company personnel outlining the specific fields needed for detailed analyses. Created tables, imported data, ran field frequency distributions, performed quality control, and wrote many queries to analyze the data in response to key points in the complaint.
• Assisted a large utility company with the development of an on-demand master report for each department of the company. Interviewed clients to determine the requirements for the project. Provided detail information regarding department description, department headcount, department historical costs and cost forecast, cost change detail, unbundling – labor, outside services unbundling, and hydroelectric divestiture. Converted and formatted this report to different document types dynamically as requested by the client.
• Performed forensic analysis on transaction-level detail for a government contractor. Created a database to house the information and perform analyses on large data sets. Summarized and categorized contracting costs into base, overhead, and general and administrative by project. Developed reports to compare to actual financial statements. Created variance analysis schedules.
• Assessed damages related to market timing litigation of an investment firm. Identified key data sources used by the company. Linked the on-line and legacy data from their foreign database source to Microsoft Access which is used for many smaller data projects. Ensured data integrity and developed an entity relationship diagram. Performed extensive analyses of the data in relation to the timing of mutual fund transactions. Presented findings to expert witness for testimony.