Cornerstone Research Inc.

Cornerstone Research Inc., a for-profit Subchapter S corporation headquartered in San Francisco, California, operates as a prime contractor delivering expert witness services and litigation support to federal agencies on a 100-percent-prime basis, competing exclusively in full-and-open procurements without set-asides. The firm specializes in forensic accounting, tax analysis, antitrust economics, and specialized subject-matter expert support for complex federal litigation and regulatory enforcement across tax, securities, antitrust, and civil-rights domains.

Cornerstone Research maintains a concentrated customer base anchored by the Internal Revenue Service and financial regulators. The top five funding agencies account for 91 percent of recent awards by count: the Internal Revenue Service leads with 26 awards valued at $56.5 million combined potential value (43 percent of the portfolio), followed by the Federal Trade Commission (19 awards, $22.5 million), the Securities and Exchange Commission (23 awards, $15.2 million), and the Department of Justice Antitrust Division (4 awards, $20.6 million). The IRS dominates both volume and dollars, with Cornerstone embedded across the agency's CYRBYME-C litigation program and the IRS Chief Counsel's office. Representative work includes a $3.7 million labor-hour contract awarded April 22, 2025, for international economics expert witness services and subject-matter expert support for phases 3–5 of an engagement (place of performance Atlanta, Georgia); a $4.36 million June 2026 time-and-materials contract with the DOJ Antitrust Division for economics expert witness services; and a $2.48 million time-and-materials contract from the DOJ Civil Rights Division for expert witness services through September 2028. Recent 2025–2026 IRS work includes German tax law expertise ($919,191), U.K. GAAP analysis ($1,093,522), financial accounting and expert witness services ($992,447), and multiple conservation-easement and litigation-support engagements valued between $986,691 and $2.5 million, all structured as labor-hours contracts with five-year periods of performance extending into 2030.

Activity trajectory shows modest volatility over the past five years — six awards in 2022, eight in 2023, four in 2024, six in 2025, and three in the first week of 2026 — with the portfolio demonstrating sustained market presence rather than growth. Within the next twenty-four months, seven awards valued at $18.7 million combined will reach ultimate completion and face recompete. The SCI data reveals $27.2 million in invoiced revenue across FY2022–FY2024, with a notable surge in FY2024 ($15.5 million across 10.9 FTEs) following two flat years ($6.3 million in FY2022 and $5.4 million in FY2023 on 4.5 and 4.1 FTEs respectively). On federal services contracts captured in SCI, government-paid median hourly rates run around $710/hr, with senior labor priced through $857/hr and junior rates at $559/hr — reflecting expert witness and principal economist positioning. Cornerstone operates exclusively as a prime on its federal work, with zero sub-engagement recorded across SCI prime contracts; the firm builds its own delivery teams and does not bring subcontractors to government work.

The vendor's award portfolio clusters by contract type and subject matter: 77 of 81 awards are coded to the PSC "Support- Professional: Expert Witness," with the balance split between legal and financial-management support codes. NAICS coding favors "All Other Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services" (33 awards) and "Other Management Consulting Services" (26 awards), reflecting the firm's positioning as specialized expert services rather than traditional IT or systems-integration work. Cornerstone competes as a full-and-open prime across civilian agencies and does not leverage set-aside vehicles, GWACs, or IDIQs; each award in the portfolio is a standalone definitive contract or purchase order priced on labor-hours or time-and-materials bases, indicating customer-directed engagement and case-by-case procurement rather than vehicle-based scaling. The absence of teaming and sub-engagement, combined with customer concentration in regulatory litigation (IRS, FTC, SEC, DOJ), positions Cornerstone as a specialized professional-services boutique competing directly against other expert-services firms rather than as a systems integrator or IT-services prime.