Setting the Standard
| The Data Science Center has set the standard for data science in our industry for over a decade. With a large team of programming specialists, we stay ahead of the curve by continuously investing in analytical hardware and software, new techniques, and our interdisciplinary team. We tackle today’s biggest challenges and anticipate what tomorrow will bring. | Our secure analytics infrastructure and in-house team are focused on delivering right-sized solutions. Whether we are developing bespoke analytic approaches to supplement traditional econometric and statistical methods or building scalable tools to help our teams automate analysis, we apply an innovation mindset to our work so we can provide defensible results for our clients. |
Featured Cases
Data Science Center Capabilities
Our staff and experts use artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to automate complex tasks and develop analytic approaches to supplement traditional econometric and statistical methods.
The Data Science Center has made noteworthy and consequential strides in using large language models (LLMs) to support the firm’s casework. These capabilities have enabled our firm to analyze vast quantities of information on a scale previously infeasible. We are continuously expanding LLM uses while also developing capabilities for a growing set of use cases. The team is applying LLMs to increasingly complex research and reasoning tasks.
An off-the-shelf LLM tool is often not secure or tailored enough to support our work or the unique needs of our clients, so we have developed foundational infrastructure and software that supports deploying on-premises LLM models and applications. This approach is well-suited to the precision and sophistication, as well as confidentiality and security, required in our work.
Cornerstone Research teams are skilled in applying various AI and ML techniques across a range of litigation and investigations.
The rapid growth in the volume of data collected and generated by companies across nearly every industry has created new challenges and opportunities for analyzing data at scale. Cornerstone Research has heavily invested in hardware, including on-premises servers. We have thereby reduced reliance on third-party hosted models and expanded our data processing capacity—all while maintaining appropriately high security. This infrastructure is essential to supporting our firm, our experts, and our clients at the highest level.
Cornerstone Research has invested heavily into hybrid cloud infrastructure to ensure scalable, secure, and cost-efficient use of cloud compute services across all major cloud providers. Our team has extensive experience leveraging cloud resources to scale data processing and high-performance computing, including:
- Leveraging cloud-based, massively parallel processing systems to analyze petabyte scale business operations data collected by a high-technology client over a 10+ year period
- Processing and analyzing hundred-terabyte scale financial exchange data comprising all messages submitted to an exchange and corresponding log data over a 15-year period
- Leveraging horizontal scaling of cloud compute resources to achieve highly parallel analytical workflows capable of reducing runtimes from weeks to hours
Blockchain technology allows for unprecedented insights into market activity through accessible, transparent, and immutable ledger data. However, unlocking these insights requires specialized expertise in technology and data analytics. To meet this need, Cornerstone Research has data scientists and engineers with extensive experience in core blockchain technologies, decentralized finance (DeFi) applications, and cryptocurrencies, having a wealth of experience:
- Building and operating blockchain infrastructure to provide direct access to historical and real-time blockchain data to support comprehensive market-wide analyses
- Performing forensic investigation of cryptocurrency transactions and digital asset tracing across blockchains, and decentralized and centralized exchanges
- Analyzing source code for core blockchain functionality, smart contracts, DeFi applications, and algorithmic cryptocurrency trading platforms
To enhance the discovery process and support expert testimony, Cornerstone Research uses modern and defensible natural language processing methods. Our capabilities allow us to sift through vast quantities of text, delivering efficient and accurate retrieval of critical information. Our staff and experts use sophisticated AI, machine learning, and statistical methods to:
- Characterize content by topic, sentiment, and position
- Identify critically relevant information
- Extract structured data and relationships from unstructured data
Cornerstone Research is experienced in collecting and distilling substantial amounts of online information, including a deep familiarity with social media data sources and analyses. We perform targeted searches and data collection, using custom scraping techniques and other proprietary and third-party resources. Our experience with machine learning and AI tools equips us to assess the relevancy and relative prominence of content and contributors.
Cornerstone Research regularly formulates and implements empirical analyses to respond to economic and financial issues. We frequently use real-world data with sophisticated statistical and econometric methods:
- Structural modeling and regression analysis
- Numerical techniques
- Time series analysis
- Forecasting, simulations, and optimization
A critical part of expert testimony is the ability to discover and convey information and relationships visually. The increasing volume, variety, and velocity of data in recent years has only increased the importance of data visualization. Cornerstone Research has extensive experience with:
- Creating effective charts, tables, and maps.
- Using programmatic methods to automate the creation of thousands of exhibits.
- Automatically collecting and visualizing data on an ongoing basis as new data become available.
The rise of big data corresponds to an increasing availability of voluminous and detailed geospatial data on customers, patients, competitors, providers, infrastructure, etc. We have substantial experience working with:
- Geospatial data, including geocoding and reverse geocoding.
- Current and historical drive time analysis, spatial joins, and distance calculations.
- Custom tools for visualizing geospatial data and creating a wide assortment of maps.
The amount of data and analysis required to develop and support expert testimony is growing rapidly. At the same time, there has been an explosion in the number of database platforms and software tools used in big data analytics. These trends have important implications for computing resources and expertise. Cornerstone Research has:
- Expertise in data management, production, and integration of large datasets at the scale of hundreds of terabytes.
- Experience with huge volumes of real-time and historical data, with individual tables comprising hundreds of billions of records.
- In-house, massively parallel processing capabilities and a team of programming specialists to ensure that we can conduct large-scale data analytics efficiently and effectively.
- Expertise with leveraging cloud computing resources for surge compute and storage capacity.
Head of the Data Science Center
Cornerstone Research’s Data Science Center allows our professionals and experts to unlock the potential of data through the development and use of innovative applications of technology.
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Mike DeCesaris
Mike DeCesaris
Vice President, Data Science Center
Featured Publications
How can we help you?
For more information about our Data Science Center capabilities and expertise, please contact us.