Learon Bird, JD, CFA

Learon Bird is a Bates Testifying Expert who provides support for disputes arising in both the litigation and regulatory space.  Mr. Bird has assisted numerous financial service firms in analyzing and preparing financial data and responses to regulators.  In his time at Bates Group, Mr. Bird has successfully integrated his legal experience and financial knowledge to bridge the gap between financial analysts, consulting and testifying experts, and client counsel.  He has also worked closely with a number of expert witnesses in digesting the results of Bates Group’s financial analysis, developing their positions and expert reports, and preparing for testimony. Mr. Bird has been qualified as an expert and testified before FINRA arbitrators.

Prior to joining Bates Group and focusing on financial analysis in 2018, Mr. Bird was an active attorney who handled a variety of litigation matters, primarily within the bankruptcy court.  He has served as counsel to various corporate bankruptcy parties, including: chapter 11 debtors, creditor committees, individual creditors, and post-petition litigation trustees.  His responsibilities included the negotiation and drafting of the various documents related to a myriad of corporate issues, including financings, acquisitions, sales, corporate formations, and employment issues.

Select Financial Analysis Representations while at Bates Group include:

• Retained to analyze client mutual funds holdings of a large broker to determine each client’s profit/loss had I-Class mutual funds been purchased instead of C-Class mutual fund shares.  This necessitated a thorough analysis of the contributing factors of the actual profit/loss achieved by the broker and a creation of a hypothetical model to determine the results in multiple scenarios.  This project required a level of precision due to the large number of C-Class mutual funds that did not have a direct equivalent I-Class.  Additionally several of the individual shares were part of mergers which required specific research to correctly account for the results of the associated hypothetical investment.
• Retained to analyze the client holdings of a mid-sized broker to determine several client’s hypothetical profit/loss had C-Class mutual funds been purchased instead of A-Class mutual fund shares.  This retention required multiple interactions directly with the state regulatory authority that raised this issue.  Through the course of these interactions and based upon the foundation of thorough and detailed analysis, the regulator acceded several issues and significantly reduced their settlement demand.  This project was complicated by a reverse stock split that necessitated a transaction by transaction review of the impacted securities and their dividend payments.
• Retained to perform a comprehensive analysis of trades initiated by a broker with a substantial client book as part of a mid-size firm’s internal investigation of potential churning and inappropriate investment selection.  We were able to uncover a pattern of trades that substantiated the brokerage firm’s concerns in regards to one broker and provide comfort that the other reviewed brokers were not engaged in readily apparent activities that would lead to their censure.  This allowed the firm to proactively approach and work with the state regulatory authority to consensually remediate the issues.
• Retained by a large broker to analyze broker registration and supervision issues flagged by a state regulator.  Client data consisted of hundreds of thousands of records and was provided in a number of spreadsheets with multiple irregularities and significant data holes.  Through the analysis performed, it was found that the broker needed to make a significant addendum to its earlier disclosure to the regulatory authority, reporting numerous additional brokers who had coverage issues and removing from their disclosure a significant number of brokers which were erroneously reported.
• Routinely retained by multiple brokerage firms to manage the analysis of client portfolios related to FINRA arbitrations and judicial proceedings.

Select Legal Representations include:
Counsel to the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors in the Fresh and Easy bankruptcy, 2017
Counsel to the Debtor in obtaining a $35 million junior financing loan, 2016
Counsel to the Debtor in obtaining a $20 million financing loan, 2014
Counsel to the Debtor in selling $125 million of distressed assets, 2014