Expert Witness Reports - Details Matter

A few months ago we discussed expert reports and their importance as a marketing tool (an available example of your expertise and work). I'm sharing one of the responses we received:

Don't forget to mention spelling.

I saw an attorney totally destroy an expert over a single misspelled word!
Actually, it was beautiful to watch - since it wasn't me. This attorney knew
damn well what the misspelled word was. Instead he asked me, what "XXX" meant.
As I started to explain, the other expert kept interrupting to correct the
spelling and this attorney kept apologizing to me for the interruption. By the
time that attorney got through, the poor expert had been censured by the judge,
after admitting his report "was mistaken with error."

Details matter!

Publicity, Practice Management, and More

I'm finally catching up on my reading and found some gems:

Being mentioned or quoted by the media can be a very effective (and inexpensive) marketing tool and who wouldn't want to be mentioned in the New York Times? See some original tips to accomplish that in this post at Nolo's Legal Marketing Blawg.

Worried about the economy's effect on expert witnesses? Head over to the Expert Witness Blog to read Rick Van Bruggen's opinion on why experts are "recession proof". While you're there - if you are based in the New York area, check out the schedule for the Gotham City Expert Witness Group.

What will happen to your practice if you have surgery? Dr. Jean Murray has some good tips for "Keeping Your Business Going After Surgery" at the Small Business Boomers blog.

And lastly, in keeping with my effort to stay on top of my "to-read" list, Scott Kirsner of the Boston Globe wrote an article on "Timely Tips to Empty Your Inbox".

Expert Witness Retainers

An expert emailed me a question about requiring fees up-front, scheduling and travel. I thought you might find our exchange interesting.

Expert's Question:

I charge a non-refundable deposit when an attorney gives me a trial date and asks me to commit to this. (I don't charge them until they ask me to make travel plans). I have been charging a full day fee since I often have to re-arrange my clinical schedule and even give up shifts to travel.

I recently had a trial that I was committed to go to be postponed and I hadn't received the deposit yet (I had worked with this firm before and trusted them).

How do other experts charge for this? Do most charge a fee before committing to travel? Non-refundable? How much?

I am wondering now if I should charge a scheduling fee, perhaps 50% of the required amount for a trial that is non-refundable. I want to be fair to the attorney since they can't control when a trial is postponed.

My Reply:

You should NOT empty your waiting room, re-arrange appointments, etc., to schedule deposition or courtroom time UNTIL you receive a check for the full,
estimated time. Then, if they postpone or cancel, you can refund money on a sliding scale (see Fee Schedule and related info in The Expert Witnessing Marketing Book) based on how easy/difficult it is and based on the date of postponement/cancellation, how easy is it is for you to restore your local work schedule.

I hear this over and over, and experts should not experience loss of income due to dates being moved by the courts and the attorneys.

What You Say and Do Will....

.... come back to haunt you. Attorney Robert Ambrogi has a great article "When What Happens Online Ends Up In Court" about ten cases in which various players in the courtroom - judges, lawyers, witnesses - found themselves in trouble due to their online activity. Some are pretty funny, but all of it serves as a reminder to be careful.

This Takes the Cake!

I've mentioned before about having contact information on promotional materials and easy to find on your websites. But now I must add -- include contact information in your directory listings and advertising! In glancing through a print directory of expert witnesses I came across a full page listing with lots of impressive information and NO contact information. No phone number, address, email address or website - NOTHING. I'm just dumbfounded.

Questions about Expert Witness Income

Have you ever been questioned by an attorney about your income as an expert witness? We recently emailed our newsletter subscribers an article about this. It struck a nerve and I have compiled the responses, which you can read here.

The most common advice seems to be to answer in percentages. How do you respond?

Do you commonly hear this question in deposition and/or trial?

Be Careful with Your Expert Witness Website

This is a caution about building and maintaining your expert witness website. As you know, everything you do, say, and write can and will be cussed and discussed and used against you. The added danger of the Internet as opposed to other venues is that once it's there, it's always there and it doesn't matter if you change it the very next day. Check out the Internet Archive and their Wayback Machine. Just type in your website address and you will see every incarnation of every page on your site since its inception and -- so can anyone else!

So what does this mean to you? If you are just building a website, don't just slap something up to have a website. If you have a website, be vigilant about who can add pages, update pages, etc., and proofread everything before putting it out there. Some things you just can't take back.

Expert Witness Deposition Video

Being from Texas, we are familiar with Frontier Justice. We just don't often expect to see it in current times, much less in an expert witness deposition.

Check out this excerpt of a deposition of an expert witness by the famous (infamous?) Houston attorney, Joe Jamail.