Joe Schertler manages development initiatives for Cornerstone Research’s consumer fraud and product liability practice. Mr. Schertler has more than thirty years of experience in litigation involving financial institutions and consumer finance. He has worked on hundreds of matters before federal and state courts, as well as arbitration panels. His expertise spans all phases of litigation and regulatory investigations, and he has supported attorneys and expert witnesses in more than a dozen trials.
Mr. Schertler addresses class certification, liability, and damages issues across a broad range of finance-related matters, with a focus on consumer finance, residential and commercial mortgages (including residential mortgage-backed securities or RMBS), consumer credit, and corporate bankruptcy. He has also consulted on numerous matters related to financial institution failures and breach of contract.
Consumer finance
In cases involving overdraft and nonsufficient funds fees, Mr. Schertler has addressed whether financial institutions breached contracts or misled customers about transaction processing. In settlement negotiations on behalf of clients, he has examined damages calculations based on customers’ debit card fees and transactions. In class certification, he has assessed whether a proposed class can be identified systematically without the need for individualized inquiry. At the merits stage of discovery, Mr. Schertler has supported experts in evaluating damages claims and identifying any mitigation of the claimed harm. In his work on these matters, he has analyzed internal databases of the financial institutions involved in the litigation.
Real estate lending
In litigation related to residential mortgage lending, Mr. Schertler has worked with experts to analyze a range of issues arising at the time of loan origination, such as underwriting guidelines, lenders’ risk-management practices, national and regional economic conditions affecting lending, and changes in industry practices and the regulatory environment.
He has extensive experience with matters related to structured finance products, including RMBS. He has supported experts testifying to the roles and responsibilities of the entities involved in issuing these securities in the context of class certification, liability, and damages.
In litigation involving residential mortgage loans in foreclosure, Mr. Schertler has addressed allegations that servicers imposed foreclosure and property preservation procedures that unfairly prejudiced borrowers. Working with an economic expert, he analyzed whether the fact of injury or the quantum of injury could be determined on a class-wide basis without need for individualized inquiry. In separate litigation, he supported a real estate appraisal expert who identified flaws in an opposing expert’s analyses and rebutted claims that housing rental rates and property valuations could be ascertained for class members.
FinTech/credit and debit card litigation
In a matter arising from the development of smart debit cards, Mr. Schertler supported two economics experts to analyze a range of issues, including the likelihood of the at-issue technology’s future adoption, competing approaches to fraud prevention, and breach of contract damages and reliance claims. In litigation involving credit card issuers, he has assessed allegations of price fixing and examined the reporting of credit card loss rates in the context of a securities class action lawsuit.
Failing financial institutions and bankruptcy
Mr. Schertler consults on a variety of issues related to failing and failed financial institutions. Applying detailed knowledge of the regulatory environment, he has assessed economic trends, real estate market developments, and structural changes in the industry. Mr. Schertler’s expertise in these matters also covers director and officer responsibilities and the roles of independent accountants and other professional services providers.
In bankruptcy disputes, Mr. Schertler has examined the holding company structure of failing corporations to assess how organizational structure affected liquidity. In lender liability matters, he has examined credit terms and corporate governance best practices.
Other litigation
Mr. Schertler has worked on numerous breach of contract cases, collectively known as the Winstar Litigation, in the Court of Federal Claims. He has examined theories of damages related to reliance, restitution, and expectancy theories.
He has wide-ranging experience in other significant matters related to ERISA; the trading practices of Wall Street investment firms; investor trading behavior in mutual funds; and antitrust matters involving allegations of price fixing and monopolization. These cases span a variety of industries, including healthcare, oil and gas, and professional sports.
Mr. Schertler has supported the firm’s research projects related to securities class action filings and FDIC lawsuits against directors and officers of failed financial institutions. Prior to joining Cornerstone Research, he worked for the Center for Naval Analysis, now CNA, an operations research firm in Washington, DC.
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