Chief of Economic Services
Credentials: M.Ed., MBA
Jurisdictions served: New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, Virginia, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Pennsylvania
Christopher Skerritt is Chief of Economic Services and directs the practice's forensic economic work for plaintiff and defense counsel. He oversees the lost earnings, wrongful death, household services, employment, and commercial damages analyses the practice prepares, from the first review of the retaining attorney's file through the final report and any testimony that follows. His standard for every figure the practice puts in front of a court is the same: it must trace to a stated assumption and a named source that opposing counsel can check.
His analyses follow the sequence forensic economists use in injury and death cases. The pre-injury or but-for earnings base is established from tax returns, payroll records, and employment history. That base is projected over a worklife expectancy drawn from published tables, with a stated growth rate for wages and employer-paid benefits. The residual earnings the person can reasonably be expected to earn after the injury or loss are subtracted, so the loss claimed is the net difference rather than the gross pre-injury figure. The net loss is then discounted to present value at a documented rate. Household services and, where a life care plan exists, the future cost of care are treated the same way, each with its own source and each shown as a separate line so counsel can see how much of the total rests on any one assumption.
Reports are written for attorneys, adjusters, mediators, and jurors rather than for other economists. Each one states the question asked, lists the records relied on, sets out the assumptions in plain language, and presents the loss under alternative scenarios where the record supports more than one reading of the facts. He is available for deposition and trial testimony on his own reports and prepares rebuttal reviews of opposing economic reports, focusing on whether the opposing expert's inputs are supported by the record and whether the arithmetic follows from those inputs.
He holds a Master of Business Administration in healthcare leadership from Bryant University and a Master of Education in rehabilitation counseling from Springfield College, and he is a Certified Rehabilitation Counselor, a Certified Life Care Planner, and a Medicare Set-Aside Certified Consultant. That background shapes his damages work. The earnings question in an injury case turns on what the person could earn before the injury and what the person can earn now, and his analyses are built to connect the medical and functional record to the earnings figures that follow from it.
The jurisdictions listed above are the states in which he has served retaining counsel; the list describes experience, not licensure, since no state licenses forensic economists, and the practice accepts engagements in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. territories. The rehabilitation counseling, life care planning, and Medicare set-aside designations listed above are background credentials from related disciplines; the work the practice is retained for, and the work he testifies to, is forensic economics.
Request a consultation or call (201) 343-0700. Plaintiff and defense counsel.