In working with an attorney, you should be careful to keep the attorney from having you testify on matters beyond your qualifications. If you are a mechanic, do not allow an attorney that is trying to save money to have you testify as a design engineer. Be cognizant of your particular area of expertise and do not let the attorney drag you into other areas because he or she wants to save money. There is no quicker way for an expert to lose credibility than to testify regarding issues beyond his or her competence. Thoroughly consider your own area of expertise and confine your testimony to opinions based on your expertise. Expertise can be based on experience, education or training which will assist the jury in deciding an issue.
Experts should, to the extent practical, do their own work. Many experts today rely on others for extensive investigations and support services. When the expert relies on deposition summaries done by others, he or she does not know the facts as well as if the depositions were read by the expert. The expert will not know the facts and details of an investigation done by someone else as well as he should. No matter how competent the support help, generally such persons are not as aware of the case difficulties and work that should be done. Thus, when the expert does not do the work, additional work that naturally should be done often is not. It is only by fully focusing on the facts of a particular case that the expert can truly provide a comprehensive evaluation and testimony. I often find that experts are not conversant with company documents pertaining to the issues in a case even when I have spent an extensive amount of time going over them. Experts often are not conversant with the basic facts even when I have gone over them. I find these problems are minimized when the expert does his own work.
This is the second in a series of articles for the EWJ by Attorney Cabaniss. For additional information call John C. Cabaniss, Esq. at (414) 278-6066.
Testify Within Your Area of Expertise
This article was edited and reviewed by FindLaw Attorney Writers | Last reviewed March 26, 2008
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