Alan J. Ruffier

Alan Ruffier is a Senior Managing Director in the Trial & Arbitration Support practice of FTI Consulting's Forensic and Litigation Consulting segment and is based in Los Angeles. Mr. Ruffier is the lead communications expert on a variety of litigation matters including intellectual property, contract disputes, securities, labor and employment, antitrust, product liability, environmental and high-tech. He works with leading corporate and trial attorneys to develop the most persuasive methods of visually communicating case-related information. Using a high-tech courtroom presentation system, he is able to integrate a comprehensive variety of demonstrative exhibits including color graphics, photo enhancements, video depositions, and animations. He has extensive knowledge of current computer technologies, which allows him to incorporate experts’ complex data into demonstrative graphics that a jury can understand.

Mr. Ruffier has worked on cases in 35 states. His clients include top law firms such as: Arnold & Porter; Gibson Dunn & Crutcher; Reed Smith; Kirkland & Ellis; Latham & Watkins; O’Melveny & Myers; Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe; Sheppard Mullin; Sullivan & Cromwell and Vinson & Elkins. He has assisted the legal teams supporting Allstate, Amgen, American Airlines, AT&T, Bank of America, Behr, Broadcom, DIRECTV, EBay, EchoStar, Exxon, Hewlett Packard, Fujitsu, IBM, Medtronic, Jefferies, JP Morgan, Immersion, LA Cellular, Lead Paint Industry, Lockheed Martin, Mattel, Micron, Microsoft, MPAA, Nike, Nintendo, Newmont Mining, Novelus, Pfizer, PG&E, Philip Morris, Oracle, Sharp, Sony, State Farm, State Compensation Insurance Fund, 3M, Visa, Tessera, TiVo,  USAI, Wal-Mart and Wyeth, among others. Some of the more notable matters in Mr. Ruffier’s career are both multi-district and multi-state.

Since 1998 Mr. Ruffier has assisted Wyeth in 32 jury trials including five defense jury verdicts and many favorable settlements, all related to product liability litigation involving the diet drugs Fenfluramine and Redux. . In the $3 billion dollar Visa CheckCard/MasterMoney Antitrust Litigation settlement, Mr. Ruffier worked with Visa’s legal team for three years before trial. Retailers, led by Wal-Mart, Sears and other large merchants, argued that Visa and MasterCard unfairly required merchants to accept their debit cards under a policy known to retailers as “honor-all-cards.”  In 2006, Mr. Ruffier worked closely with Morgan Chu and his trial team at Irell & Manella supporting TiVo in a patent case in Marshall, Texas in front of Judge Folsom. The jury came back with an $80 million dollar verdict for TiVo after 4 hours of deliberation.

Another of Mr. Ruffier’s career highlights is his assistance with the State Compensation Insurance Fund (SCIF) defending against A& J Liquor Co., et al.  The trial lasted nine months and resulted in a full defense victory. The plaintiffs alleged SCIF overcharged for workers’ compensation coverage in an effort to build up a war chest to garner market share against competing insurers. This class action suit put almost $2 billion in damages at stake, an amount that would have been most detrimental to State Fund’s financial stability.  

For five years prior to joining FTI Consulting in 1995, Mr. Ruffier worked with Litigation Sciences as the art director for their Los Angeles and San Francisco offices. Earlier in his career, Mr. Ruffier worked for Frame by Frame, where he produced two feature-length motion pictures. Mr. Ruffier is also an accomplished cyclist. He races for Team Velocity in the Masters 45+ category in local, state and national events, when work permits.  He applies the same principles in cycling that he does at work: teamwork, fair play, discipline, perseverance and the desire to win.