When working with an inexperienced expert witness, they will need to be prepared for deposition the same as a lay witness. For example, the equipment and machinery expert witness working on your case will be conversant in their field but will need to know that:
They are under oath.
They need to understand questions before answering.
In Finding a Remedy For Renters, security expert witness John a. Harris writes:
In most inadequate-security suits, then, the first step in establishing foreseeability is to examine the criminal history of the property. Review reports of calls for police service to find how many residents reported crimes on the premises and in the immediate vicinity, when and where those crimes occurred, and their similarity or other relationship to the crime involving your client. Reported burglaries are important because future burglaries may lead to assaults against people in the apartment.”
After examining the calls for service, obtain police incident reports for those that appear most pertinent. Police reports will yield more detail, including a narrative by the responding officer.
DNA expert witness Dan E. Krane of Forensic Bioinformatics, Inc. on scientific evidence:
What makes scientific evidence so powerful in court is very simple: it’s supposed to be scientific. That means that it is supposed to be objective and completely independent of the subject of an investigation (a suspect or a defendant). It is therefore absolutely shocking that DNA testing laboratories routinely put themselves in a situation where specific information about a subject’s DNA profile might influence their interpretation of an evidence sample.
Last December, eleven prominent experts from around the US and even Scotland met in Washington, DC to discuss the problem of examiner bias/context effect in DNA profiling. Given the breadth of expertise and roles of these experts it surprised many of us that we were able to not only agree about the magnitude and nature of the problem, but also to a solution. The result was the generation of a position paper that has been published in this month’s Journal of Forensic Sciences.
In Finding a Remedy For Renters, security expert witness John a. Harris writes:
When crime occurs in a residential apartment building, a security expert witness can help you evaluate whether the victim has a viable case against the property owner… Security is one of the foremost problems facing apartment-community owners because apartments have become prime targets for criminals in recent years. Criminals are often drawn to a particular property because they know the owner has not taken adequate security measures. Owners may give security a low priority, choosing instead to focus on “curb appeal”amenities such as landscaping, tennis courts, gyms, and swimming pools to attract and retain tenants…
Residents are often transient and thus less likely to know one another, visitors and delivery persons come and go at odd hours, and organizations such as Community Watch are more difficult to sustain because residents are not permanent. Frequently, young residents are living away from home for the first time and are naive about the possibility of crime. Also, residents may assume, often incorrectly, that the owner is providing adequate security because the property appears well maintained, well lit, and secure with gates and fences-and because the leasing agent indicated to the residents that the property was safe when they signed the lease. Despite these challenges, landlords must make security issues a top priority.
In Your Witness, Sam Adam shares eight lessons from a lifetime as a Cook County criminal lawyer.
1) Look at the trial itself as an entity rather than as a collection of witnesses. Remember that the ultimate purpose of cross-examination is to get those gold nuggets for closing argument. Know every fact about the case – and perhaps especially your opponent’s case – before you plan your cross-examination. This should usually include viewing the scene. A well-prepared lawyer who has a superior knowledge of the facts has an enormous advantage going on.
Your Witness: Lessons on Cross-Examination and Life From the Great Chicago Trial Lawyers is published by Law Bulletin Publishing Company, 2008.
Writing an article is one of the best educational marketing tools available to you as an expert witness. In deciding what topic about which to write, answer questions such as these in your article:
• What are the key issues in your field, and how should an expert be able to address them?
• What should an attorney know when they have a case in this area?
In How Attorneys Can Best Utilize Their Medical Expert Witness: A Medical Expert’s Perspective, Dr. Vernon M. Neppe MD, PhD, FRSSAf, FAPA, writes on Medical Court Testimony: The Plan of Attack:
Teaching the expert how to avoid pitfalls
The attorney needs to ensure that the expert understands the tricks that the other attorney may use. He needs to teach the expert, if necessary. This should be a given, but many “expert consultants” are not experts in the medicolegal side, though they know a great deal about their expertise. These are examples of pitfalls that the expert should be aware of during cross-examination:
In So when do we get it over with and declare Google a monopoly?, Charles Cooper on CNet.com quotes antitrust expert witness Richard Schmalensee, of MIT’s Sloan School of Management.
‘There are the standard numbers people throw around but I think most people would say you have to decide whether search ad is a market for antitrust proposes. If it is, that’s a high enough share. But you also have to look at issues of entry and issues of fragility. How stable is that share and how intense is that market,’ Schmalensee said.
‘There’s no magic threshold but with high share levels, you get to be concerned,’ he continued. ‘On the other hand, monopolists are allowed to compete. The question is whether the arrangement would stifle competition.’
In How Attorneys Can Best Utilize Their Medical Expert Witness: A Medical Expert’s Perspective, Dr. Vernon M. Neppe MD, PhD, FRSSAf, FAPA, writes on Medical Court Testimony: The Plan of Attack:
Teaching the expert how to avoid pitfalls
The attorney needs to ensure that the expert understands the tricks that the other attorney may use. He needs to teach the expert, if necessary. This should be a given, but many “expert consultants” are not experts in the medicolegal side, though they know a great deal about their expertise. These are examples of pitfalls that the expert should be aware of during cross-examination:
PointofLaw.com on expert witness reform:
It’s not as if the Bayou State regularly produces good news on lawsuit reform, but a new measure applauded by Fred Shumate, executive director of Louisiana Lawsuit Abuse Watch, sounds like an exception: S.B. 308 “would establish a uniform system for eliminating ‘junk science’ and nonexpert witnesses from the courtroom. … This legislation is similar to laws passed recently in Georgia, Mississippi and Michigan, and is already being called a model for possible legislation in West Virginia.”
