Discovery Strategies in Solar Fraud Litigation: Uncovering the Financing Schemes

Solar fraud cases rarely turn on a single misrepresentation or a single defendant. Instead, they arise from an integrated sales and financing ecosystem in which installers, sales organizations, and lenders each control different pieces of the evidentiary puzzle. Traditional discovery approaches borrowed from construction-defect or consumer-credit litigation often fail to surface the documents and testimony that actually establish liability, rescission rights, or meaningful settlement leverage.

This webinar is designed for attorneys who already litigate solar cases and want to sharpen their discovery strategy. The program focuses on how to identify the real decision-makers, obtain high-value documents that defendants routinely resist producing, and use discovery to expose pricing manipulation, undisclosed finance charges, misleading proposals, and lender control over the sales and installations processes. Attendees will leave with a clearer framework for structuring discovery to support fraud, consumer protection, and lending claims while positioning their cases for early resolution or trial.

What You Will Learn

• How to structure discovery to uncover hidden pricing, dealer fees, and financing markups that are not apparent from the consumer-facing contract or disclosures
• How to target lender, platform, and installer discovery to establish control, agency, and coordinated misrepresentations across multiple defendants
• How to overcome common discovery objections in solar fraud cases, including claims of irrelevance, trade secrets, confidentiality, and attempts to cabin discovery to a single installation rather than a broader sales practice

Speakers

Derek Hills is a lawyer based in Easton, Maryland, and serves as Of Counsel to the Holland Law Firm in Annapolis, Maryland. With a unique blend of legal expertise and practical experience in the construction industry, Derek effectively represents homeowners in construction disputes, and consumer protection matters including disputes with solar panel businesses. Derek brings over 20 years of experience from the construction industry, having held various project management roles. Derek has successfully handled disputes on behalf of consumers against solar panel businesses since 2017. These cases have involved issues such as fraudulent contract execution, billing irregularities, financing problems, installation defects, elder abuse, warranty issues, and production issues.

Katie Sass is an associate at the law firm of Kemnitzer, Barron & Krieg, LLP. Her practice focuses on consumer financing, unfair debt collections practices, and solar panel fraud. Prior to joining Kemnitzer, Barron & Krieg, Katie practiced as a Senior Attorney in Bay Area Legal Aid’s Consumer Rights Unit. She previously worked as a Litigation Attorney at the Eviction Defense Collaborative in San Francisco and as an associate attorney at Crowell & Moring, where she focused on antitrust and commercial litigation. Katie graduated with honors from University of California, Los Angeles in 2013 and obtained her law degree from Harvard Law School in 2018.

Registration

Please note that all live webinars are free to NACA members. Non-Members need to create an account on NACA’s website and email [email protected] to be verified in order to register for the webinar.  Non-Member who purchase the webinar, higher level and firm members will have access to the recording.