Choosing and Preparing Expert Witnesses is Crucial to Winning Cases

Expert testimony has become the critical element in many civil and criminal cases. The outcome of personal injury litigation can depend on just a few words from an expert witness whom the Court recognizes as a credible and reliable authority.

Our strategy at Abraham, Watkins, Nichols, Agosto, Aziz & Stogner is to use expert witnesses as both an offensive and defensive tactic. In other words, lawyers must know how to protect the credibility of their own witnesses, as well as attack the credibility of the experts brought forward by opposing counsel.

Proper attention must be given to preparing and protecting expert witnesses. Without laying such a foundation, lawsuits and trials can easily be substantially devalued or totally lost. My job as a lawyer is to learn how to 1) pick the right experts, 2) prepare them to present evidence to the jury, and 3) prepare them for cross-examination. If an expert witness is surprised by a line of questioning during trial testimony, it could give opposing counsel an opportunity to challenge the witness= expertise and, thus, render the expert=s opinion ineffective.

In addition to our firm=s extensive database of expert witnesses, we are constantly searching for additional experts in all fields of science who are knowledgeable, reliable and credible. Our clients deserve nothing less.

(Some of the information contained in this blog was obtained from an interview of [email protected], Jr. by Brenda Craig and can be found at www.lawyersandsettlements.com.)