Elizabeth Newlon, PhD

In class and collective actions, Dr. Newlon has evaluated Rule 23 class certification requirements, addressed liability, and estimated economic damages. In addition to her knowledge of economic and statistical analyses, Dr. Newlon has decades of experience building large and complex databases from diverse sources to address economic questions.

In complex wage and hour class and collective actions, she has testified about the economics underlying independent contractor misclassification claims and joint-employer status claims. She has provided analysis and testimony on the economics of multi-sided digital platforms in relation to claims of independent contractor misclassification in the gig economy. More broadly, Dr. Newlon has provided expert testimony and consulting in class, collective, and multi-plaintiff actions alleging state and federal wage and hour law violations. She understands the intricacies of calculating statutory damages and penalties under California labor laws, including claims brought under the Private Attorney General Act (PAGA). She has investigated and calculated damages for claims of alleged miscalculation of regular rate and unpaid overtime, incorrect piecewise compensation, off-the-clock work, improper wage deductions and reimbursements, and meal/rest break violations.

Also in the area of wage and hour matters, Dr. Newlon has provided insightful criticism on the use of sampling during the class certification phase. In addition, she has estimated wages and other compensation owed to employees under federal and state Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act legislation.

In disparate impact and disparate treatment matters, Dr. Newlon has testified in class action and single-plaintiff cases alleging age, gender, and race discrimination under state and federal statutes. She also performs sophisticated employer audits to minimize the risk of discrimination litigation due to pay, promotion, hire, and termination equity. In conjunction with equity audits, she advises on implementing remediation strategies to eliminate disparities. Dr. Newlon has also testified on claims of healthcare discrimination under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and Title VI.

In antitrust wage-fixing and no-poach matters, at the nexus of labor and antitrust litigation, Dr. Newlon has evaluated allegations of compensation suppression by employers and examined labor market definitions. She has experience analyzing and opining on claims related to horizontal agreements to fix wages or limit recruitment efforts through alleged “no-poach” agreements in large class action matters.

In single-plaintiff wrongful termination and injury matters, Dr. Newlon has extensive experience estimating economic losses. She applies economic modeling and analysis of publicly available data to accurately estimate back- and front-pay damages. Dr. Newlon also has significant experience modeling and calculating economic damages for executives and other highly paid individuals.

Dr. Newlon’s career also includes experience with human trafficking matters. She has sensitively testified about class certification issues related to sex trafficking allegations and investigated and written about characteristics and patterns of labor trafficking in the greater Los Angeles area.

In the area of in-house litigation management, Dr. Newlon develops live dashboards in Power BI that provide sophisticated visuals of extensive case metrics, data analytics, and litigation cost estimates. These dashboards provide in-house attorneys with the information on cost, staffing, and matter flows necessary to manage many ongoing matters. To do so, Dr. Newlon leverages an innovative combination of litigation data and financial statements to produce custom analytics that are both complex and easy to navigate and understand.

Dr. Newlon is the head of NERA’s Los Angeles office and leader of its Artificial Intelligence Focus Group. Before entering private practice, she taught graduate classes in equilibrium theory and undergraduate courses in microeconomics as an assistant professor of economics at the University of Kentucky. Her research focused on the optimal provision of public goods such as education and policing. Dr. Newlon has published articles on these subjects and presented her work at professional economic conferences and special seminars.