The 2017 Women Leaders on Consulting: Dawn Hall

Dawn Hall is a Senior Managing Director in the Dispute Advisory Services practice within the Forensic & Litigation Consulting segment at FTI Consulting and is the co-leader of the Intellectual Property practice. She is based in New York. Hall has 20 years of experience assisting companies and counsel with complex economic, financial, accounting, and litigation issues.

"The values that were instilled in me growing up—kindness, respect, integrity, honesty, strength, continuous learning, leadership, commitment—complement and can be summed up in the core values of FTI Consulting," Hall says. "Each value is critically important for personal and professional success, and the lack of any one of these values is a deal breaker as far as I am concerned."

FTI is a company comprised of individuals actively living out the core values of the firm in collaboration with one another, she says. "There is no perfect place, but FTI Consulting is pretty darn close. They are my family and I enjoy coming to work every day with such an esteemed group of professionals."

Upon graduating from the University of Notre Dame, Hall began her career as a consultant at one of the Big Five public accounting firms in their Forensic and Litigation Consulting Practice. "I was enamored by the high caliber Fortune 500 and Am Law 100 clients we represented and the complex problems we helped them solve," she says. "As a young professional, I was attracted to the diversity of the clients, the variety of the industries, the complexity of the issues that needed to be tackled and the ability to gain a mastery in a number of different areas quickly."  These are the very same reasons she continues to work in the consulting field at FTI Consulting some 20 years later, she says.  "Each day presents a new challenge and a different problem to solve."

Hall has directed numerous commercial litigation engagements focused on applied economic and damages analyses as it relates to intellectual property and commercial litigation matters, including patent infringement, trademark infringement, copyright infringement, trade secret, false advertising and other types of business disputes, such as breach of contract, breach of non-solicitation/non-compete agreements, transfer pricing and Securities and Exchange Commission investigations related to accounting irregularities.

"My client engagements provide me with a front-seat view of the issues that keep senior leaders up at night," Hall says. "As a damages expert in complex commercial disputes, it is exhilarating to present my opinions to the judge or jury based on the facts of the case and receive a verdict in favor of my client."

As exhilarating as that is, Hall says her greatest lifetime achievement is the birth of her three healthy, vivacious sons and the shaping of these young boys' lives.  "Nothing can quite compare to that!"

Consulting: What does winning the Women Leaders in Consulting award mean to you?

Hall: "I am extremely honored and grateful to have been selected as a Future Women Leader in Consulting by Consulting magazine. I am humbled to be named among the esteemed group of women recognized this year who have made incredible contributions to the consulting industry.  This is a very proud moment for me and I would like to sincerely thank Consulting magazine for this prestigious award."