Nick Ferrara
    Director & Forensic Examiner

    Nick Ferrara has been an integral part of more than 100 cases, spanning numerous commercial industries and all of DisputeSoft’s core practice areas.

    SOFTWARE EXPERIENCE

    • Programming Languages & Databases

      C#, .NET Framework, C, C++, PHP, Java, JavaScript, Python, SQL, Perl, AWK, Ruby, Bash Scripting, Scheme, Visual FoxPro, ColdFusion, Prolog, among others

    • Frameworks & Data Analysis Tools

      Git, SVN, Atlassian Suite (Jira, Bitbucket), Angular, React, HP QC, HP ALM, IBM Rational Suite

    • Operating Systems & Servers

      Windows, Linux, Unix

    • Mobile Devices & Applications

      Android and iOS

    CERTIFICATIONS

    • EnCase Certified Examiner (EnCE)

      Guidance Software

    • Technical Services Certified (TSC), Certified Staffing Professional (CSP)

      American Staffing Association (ASA)

    As a technical and consulting expert in over 100 IT project failure, breach of contract, intellectual property misappropriation, and computer forensics matters, Nick has been engaged on cases before state, federal, and international courts. He has been designated as a testifying expert in a number of software disputes, including cases in U.S. Federal Court and before the American Arbitration Association (AAA).

    Nick has extensive experience on cases involving failed software projects in which unit, functional, integration, regression, and performance testing results were at issue, and he has experience with a number of industry standard software testing tools, including HP ALM, LoadRunner, and IBM Rational. Nick’s testing experience also includes the application of industry standard techniques for defect analysis, including the analysis of defect open/close rates, average time-to-close, and technical debt estimation.

    In addition, Nick’s experience at DisputeSoft includes code reviews of everything from analyzing the architecture of large scale, multi-tier information systems to examinations of low-level smartphone firmware code. Nick has also assisted in a number of computer forensic investigations, including the examination of unallocated hard drive clusters for evidence of spoliation, research into Windows time logs and system clock synchronization protocols, and extraction of smartphone data logs for evidence of executive misconduct.

    In addition to his client work, Nick also serves as DisputeSoft’s Director of Software Development. In this role, Nick actively applies industry standard techniques for the design and development of internal software tools using Agile development methodologies. Most recently, Nick led the effort to develop DisputeSoft’s proprietary static code analysis tool leveraged in our Code ACE™ service, which is capable of comparing and analyzing millions of lines of source code.

    Representative Experience

    Citcon LLC v. RiverPay Inc.

    Nature of Suit: Copyright infringement and trade secret misappropriation matter regarding payment processing software
    Role: Testifying expert

    • Nick conducted in-depth analyses and comparisons of the parties’ source code, including side-by-side comparisons, architectural analysis, and reviews for publicly available and third-party source code
    • Nick reviewed various revisions of the source code stored in the parties’ git and Subversion repositories, and forensically analyzed metadata associated with those revisions
    • Nick prepared two declarations, an expert report, a supplemental expert report, and a rebuttal report, and testified to his findings at trial

    ProSuite Software Limited, et al. v. InfoKey Inc., et al.

    Nature of Suit: Copyright infringement matter regarding software for creating and managing real estate documents
    Role: Testifying expert

    • Nick compared the parties’ sets of source code, including database schema and stored procedures
    • Nick investigated whether the source code at issue was protected under the terms of the parties’ contract
    • Nick testified that none of the protected source code was present in the accused software product

    Federal Signal Technologies, LLC v. Texas Department of Transportation

    Nature of Suit: Software project failure matter regarding software for billing and collecting tolls on state highways
    Role: Consulting expert

    • Nick conducted an analysis to determine what percentage of a project was completed by the plaintiff prior to the defendant’s termination of the project for convenience
    • Nick developed a model for calculating the percent complete for each deliverable based upon both the parties’ document approval process and a baseline of work completed using as-planned schedules

    EDUCATION

    • B.A., Oberlin College

    Top Cases

    Case
    DisputeSoft was engaged by the County of Orange in this software failure dispute involving the implementation of a property tax management system.
    Case
    DisputeSoft was engaged by the defendant in this copyright infringement dispute involving software for oil and gas exploration.
    Case
    DisputeSoft was engaged by The Studer Group in this trade secret misappropriation dispute involving a hospital patient survey system.

    Top Posts

    Post software piracy expert witness
    DisputeSoft's Jeff Parmet, Tom Ashley, and Nick Ferrara offer a brief overview of techniques DisputeSoft has used to lay the necessary evidentiary foundation to support misappropriation and infringement claims relating to online piracy.
    Post
    This installment of DisputeSoft's Computer Forensics series considers how experts can establish or refute inferences of spoliation by examining Windows Event Logs.

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