Tips for Choosing Expert Witnesses

Technical, scientific or detailed facts often require explanations from experts. Therefore, many legal teams seek expert witness services during discovery and court proceedings on especially complicated topics. However, choosing the right expert witness can be challenging.

Qualifications

To win your case, you want an expert with experience who can also explain their topic of expertise in language that a lay person can understand. Your witness should be a practitioner, academic or professional expert with a consulting firm who has specialized knowledge in the field.

A CV may be an initial starting point in your research, but also check the experts’ publication history. Also, find out their years in the field and whether they have speaking and testifying experience. You want someone who communicates effectively.

Chemistry

Although they remain impartial and only share information about a specific topic, expert witnesses become part of your trial team. Therefore, they should have personalities that easily blend with the rest of the team. You will spend a lot of time with these witnesses, and if your personalities clash or they are difficult to work with, this will show during trial and may reflect poorly on your case.

Find out if the witnesses have worked with other attorneys, and contact those attorneys to determine how well they worked with the team and their impact on the case.

Time

As you narrow down your list, make sure that the witness understands the time requirements of working on your case, especially if the process will be long. Make sure you are up front about any time, travel or other requirements, and avoid witnesses that have extensive commitments because this may affect the time and dedication they will give to your case.

Jury

The jury makes the final decision in the case, and they judge each person they hear. They will observe your team’s clothing and demeanor. They will identify clear bias and whether the witness speaks with respect or contempt. Your witness must be professional and persuasive without obvious bias.

Case Review

Consider giving the witnesses a general overview of your case to determine their true beliefs about your point of view. Your witnesses must be independent. They cannot appear to be manipulating facts to prove your point. Their position must be based on scientific evidence. However, you don’t want to choose witnesses that obviously disagree with your position and may be detrimental to your case.

Expert witnesses should be able to provide your legal team and the jury with detailed information and conclusions about their topic of expertise as well as how they arrived at those conclusions. Therefore, choose your expert witnesses carefully.