When it comes to expert witnesses, engineers are an often-invoked name during the course of litigation. But merely knowing that your case can benefit from an engineer does not make preparation any easier. The breadth of the field and the…

There are times when a court case demands the input of one or more experts. However, this does not necessarily mean each party must have their own expert. Consider, for example, a divorce case where a parenting expert is needed.…

  While computer software has made it easier to tell when a word-processing file was created or modified by a particular machine, determining whether a handwritten item belongs to a particular writer remains difficult. Enter handwriting expert witnesses, who specialize…

In October of 2018, a Federal Court denied plaintiffs their motion for an extension and amendment of the scheduling order.  The case provides an illustration of the importance of either following the scheduling order or taking steps to establish due…

In Shallow v. Follwell, plaintiffs Heather Shallow, Michael Bishop, and Todd Bishop sued Dr. Richard Follwell, alleging the negligent wrongful death of the plaintiffs’ mother after her bowel was perforated during surgery.  Plaintiffs alleged that in addition to perforating the…

Attorneys and parties do not get to choose their lay witnesses. That choice is made by circumstance: The fact witnesses available will be the people who happened to be on the scene at the time. The same is not true…

Numerous studies have indicated that jurors respond well to visuals, and that graphic evidence drastically increases their rate of information retention from 10% to 87%. Because the average juror is more likely to remember what they see rather than what…

In litigation, whether criminal or civil, there are times when a client’s access to funds is limited. When determining where to cut corners, often times, a decision is made to use the same expert for separate but important roles: that…

Expert witnesses provide specific subject-matter insight that a case’s attorneys, parties, and jury may lack. This support is indispensable in many cases.  But when it comes to contextualizing an expert’s publications, legal teams may find it challenging to locate and…

  Here, we explore the scope and limitations of expert opinions, including what experts may testify to, on what information they can base their testimony, how confident experts need to be in the “correctness” of their opinions, and the types…