Data Analysis

Corporations continue to invest heavily in data collection and analytics to inform their business decisions. Commercial litigation matters commonly involve datasets with hundreds of thousands of pieces of data. You need a Forensics expert that is comfortable working with lots of information.

Accurate and compelling testimony that explains a dataset and uses the data to predict and describe damages is essential.

Cogence Group has experience identifying data analysis methodology issues, data discrepancies, synthesizing data, and, most importantly, communicating the big picture patterns to a trier-of-fact.

In a recent matter, we were engaged by the defendant of a lawsuit in which they were being sued by the United States Government for approximately $350 million. The government’s case hinged on the analysis of a very small sample which they extrapolated to the entire population. Our task was to evaluate the methodology and application of the government’s analysis and then to complete our own sampling analysis.

After a careful review of the government’s work, we identified several errors that directly resulted in a highly inflated damages figure. Out of a sample of 194 observations turned over by the defendant, the government selected just 19 of the “worst” data points to extrapolate to a population size of approximately 30,000. We performed our own analysis which impugned the government’s damages claim and reduced the damages amount by nearly 10 times.

In another case, we were asked to analyze 600,000 lines of clock data and over 100,000 lines of wage data to determine whether a manufacturing facility’s clock-in and clock-out system was rounding employee time improperly. The dataset was not consistent and contained some systematic properties that made direct comparison difficult.

When working with a spreadsheet of this size, it is imperative that one has a mastery of Excel formulas and keyboard shortcuts. We created Macros and used vLookup and Index excel functions to standardize the data automatically.

The attorneys we worked with loved that Cogence Group’s model was dynamic. We used pivot tables to provide specific insights in just a few clicks.

Critically, we presented our conclusions using simple language and simple bar charts to demystify the data for the trier-of-fact. Complex analysis is only as good as your ability to communicate the results in a clear and articulate way.

Does your litigation matter include complex financial and statistical issues?