In Be a Better Expert Witness, marketing expert Rosalie Hamilton asks “What proactive steps will you take to be a better and more in-demand expert consultant?
Developing your practice and becoming a more effective expert consultant requires that you perform an honest assessment of yourself and your practice. Based on what you determine to be areas that need improvement, steps to take could include: honing your skills at case review, opinion report writing, testifying in deposition and court, and marketing your practice.
If you are new to providing services to attorneys and have not read The Expert Witness Handbook by Dan Poynter, an expert witness, this book would be a good choice. It presents an overview, along with practical, time-tested advice and examples.
If you are more seasoned in this work, you need The A to Z Guide to Expert Witnessing. It is not as easy a read as Poynter’s book but is truly comprehensive, a complete reference source for your practice, and a must-have for your library.
The most important book for an expert’s skill set is Writing and Defending Your Expert Report. If your credentials qualify you for legal case consulting, then the next and most important line of attack is your opinion report, and your permission to testify and credibility in doing so depend upon your ability to produce an effective and defensible report.
Last, I wrote The Expert Witness Marketing Book as an outline for experts to use to professionally, safely, and successfully market their services. Whether they do their own marketing, have a marketing director, or use us as their marketing department, experts say they dog-ear the pages because they re-read it and refer back to it so often.
Read more: ExpertCommunications.com.