150 South Wacker Dr., Suite 2300
Chicago, Illinois 60606
Phone 312-237-4843    Print   Email 
Fax 312-237-4801
Email halbright@natomapartners.com
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Heather has over ten years of professional experience, eight of which have been spent providing consulting services to clients involved in litigation or other challenging business conditions. Her focus has been on the analysis and valuation of damages due to lost profits or diminution of value related to breach of contract, business interruptions, or intellectual property disputes. Heather has also been involved with large accounting restatement projects.

Prior to joining Natoma Partners, Heather was in the strategic planning group at Sidley Austin LLP where she worked with the firm’s senior management and partners on short- and long-term planning projects and analyzing growth through acquisitions and other opportunities. Prior to that, Heather was a director in the Disputes and Investigation practice at Huron Consulting Group. She started her career as a consultant at Arthur Andersen.

Representative examples of Heather’s engagement experience include the following:

• Assisted with the preparation of an expert report to evaluate damages to an insurance broker resulting from a breach of non-solicit and non-compete terms of an employment contract. Work included a discounted cash flow analysis to quantify lost profits from departed customers and a lost merger opportunity.
• Evaluated damages to a Fortune 100 chemical company arising from a leak at a storage facility and verified claims made by the other party to the litigation. Work included the recreation of company owned financial models to determine potential lost profits and a review of industry transactions to identify comparables for valuing storage.
• Supported an international rail operator with a dispute involving the exchange of rail traffic with another major rail operator in Latin America. Work included analyzing a database of all shipping records over a seven year period, as well as examining various accounting records to determine the accuracy of both the client’s payables and receivables. Also assisted the client in identifying control weaknesses with data collection and billing processes.
• Provided litigation support for a Joint Defense Team of multiple pharmaceutical manufacturers related to class action litigation matters associated with pharmaceutical pricing and reimbursement issues. Work included extensive analysis of manufacturer, wholesaler, pharmacy benefit manager, provider and health insurance data involved in the distribution and reimbursement of pharmaceutical drugs.
• Assisted with the preparation of an expert report to support a damage analysis calculating lost profits and reasonable royalties resulting from a patent infringement for a manufacturer of thermal barcode printers.
• Performed an equity valuation for the minority owner of a professional basketball and hockey franchise in regards to a purchase price dispute. Work included calculating the fair market value of the assets, including the sports arena and league contracts.Prepared a valuation report to summarize findings.
• Performed a damage analysis for a large pharmaceutical company to quantify manufacturer costs related to certain pharmaceutical inventory damaged and rendered unfit for sale after several sprinkler malfunctions at a warehouse.
• Provided various financial and litigation consulting services to counsel of a leasing company in defense of a compensation dispute. Specifically, assisted with the calculation of the profit and loss related to various incentive compensation plans within the venture capital division and with the discovery process related to the claims.
• Assisted a large U.S. truck manufacturer, in the course of an accounting restatement, reconstruct and document its accounting for fixed assets for a six year period. The scope of the work covered all aspects of fixed assets accounting, including in-service dates, capitalized interest, and book and tax depreciation expense. Effort included the design and development of a SQL database tool to calculate the depreciation of all fixed assets over the restatement period.
• Supported the internal audit committee of a public utility company to investigate and assess a series of specific allegations contained in various anonymous letters received by the Illinois Commerce Commission. Work including analysis of various systems for billing, safety inspections, marketing, and customer service.
• Assisted a large retail company in facilitating the implementation of a new Consumer Product Safety Commission reporting initiative. Efforts included data gathering, analysis, and implementation of a working model.