Michael F. Richards, a native of California and now based in Manhattan, Montana, is an excellent choice if you are searching for a national banking and financial litigation specialist to testify as a qualified expert witness in federal and state courts or act as an arbitrator. His specialties are consulting, providing testimony at a trial, testifying as an expert in court or in arbitration, expert report writing, discovery assistance, review of documents, and deposition question assistance.
In addition to his standard expert witness testimony and report writing, his litigation support specialist includes regulatory research, in-depth discovery assistance, and the deposition questioning of opposing expert witnesses. He is versatile and was retained as an expert by plaintiffs 49 percent of the time and by defendants 51 percent of the time.
Richards’ other areas of expertise in serving financial institutions and borrowers include Commercial Real Estate, Business, Mergers and Acquisitions, Real Estate Finance, Mortgages, Fraud Investigation, Credit Damage, White Collar Crime, and Bankruptcy. Richards is qualified in all areas of commercial banking, but his special expertise is in large commercial loans and large complex litigation regarding commercial real estate.
As of July 2017, he had been retained as a financial expert witness in the areas of banking and finance by attorneys for 94 cases in 32 states He also had given testimony in a criminal white collar case brought against the United States of America and has been retained in Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) cases.
Richards’ knowledge comes from a great many prior years of background banking experience as a President, Director, Founder, Work-out Specialist, Vice President/Site Manager, Loan Officer, Branch Manager, and Organizer. He started the Big Sky Western Bank in Big Sky, Montana, and operated it for 12 years until the bank merged into the Glacier Bank System, where he stayed as Director and President. He helped Heritage Bank and the Mountain West Bank establish new locations. He founded the Bank of Bozeman and was the President/CEO and a Director.
His experience in heading a work-out department has provided him with a wealth of knowledge regarding litigation testimony from a bank officer’s perspective and a keen understanding of the internal workings of banks. He has had experience in banking operations and policies, regulatory oversight, lending, lender liability, and more. He earned a B.S. degree in Animal Science from the University of California, Davis.
