The lucrative economics of expert witnesses • Hacker News Board

Re: The lucrative economics of expert witnesses

#111

Post by daniel-cussen » Tue, Jun 14, 2022, 4:37 AM UTC

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #45

daniel-cussen wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe that "ad hominem" is not actually a fallacy in general. Like anywhere intent is involved. And in math too. You can never take the camera out of the room, if you see the camera taken out of the room that's not the camera, that's a camera, you're looking through *the * camera. "Hidden camera" scenes involve a second hidden camera, only some of the shots are made pointing at the camera, plus the "fools" in pra…

Welcome, GPT-3 or it's cousin! So glad you could join us.

EDIT: Paul, you can call me Daniel instead of GPT-3, or Mr. Cussen instead of "it's cousin" (should be "its cousin" human, if my pronouns are "it/its/its" get it right, no apostrophes), well if you call me Mr. Cussen or "its cousin", your call. Let me write, if I'm an AI that's fucked because I'm improving AI so we're at the singularity.

Don't quit your day job.

https://fgemm.com, coming soon.

Re: The lucrative economics of expert witnesses

#112

Post by fshbbdssbbgdd » Tue, Jun 14, 2022, 7:19 AM UTC

pc86 wrote: post #70

devchix wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well I went to the same law school my cousin Vinny did, and I'm pretty sure you can disqualify the expert witness by asking questions like, what's the correct ignition timing be on a 1955 Bel Air Chevrolet with a 327 cubic-inch engine and a four-barrel carburetor? You can also have your own expert witness called to directly rebut their expert witness. If expert witnesses are never paid, no one will be an expert witne…

I'm surprised to see it suggested that being unable to immediately recall arcane trivia in a high pressure situation would be a disqualifying feature, but then... gestures broadly at every technical interview . Witnesses are already paid. You can be subpoenaed to present fact or character testimony, and you're required by law to show up (but you're still paid). I'm pretty sure subpoenaing random experts isn't the sol…

My hourly is a lot less than $1,500, but I don’t think I’d take $1,500 to testify for an hour. First, I’d probably need to take off work for the whole day. I’d need to familiarize myself with the case, psych myself up for this crazy high-pressure situation, do the thing, then possibly be subject to public criticism for my role in it afterwards. It doesn’t sound worth it to me. I’m not sure what my price is, maybe $5k?

This is assuming my role is to defend some patent troll or something. If I really believed in the cause, I might do it for free.

Actually the technical interview is an interesting comparison. They’re also stressful and require preparation. But the monetary reward is orders of magnitude greater!

Re: The lucrative economics of expert witnesses

#113

Post by dwheeler » Fri, Jun 24, 2022, 4:22 AM UTC

lukas099 wrote: post #87

dwheeler wrote: post #5

I was an expert witness this year. In that case, I wasn't paid by either side. But I can understand better why people ask for big paydays. The opposing side does their best to make you and your statements look bad. Even when you know that's what they are doing, it's quite unpleasant. The lawyer on the side I was supporting said that this unpleasantness was why they often had to pay handsomely for testimony.

Was this for a case that you had strong feelings about, or was there another reason that you did this pro bono?

I had strong feelings about it, and I figured it wouldn't take too much time. I was wrong about that second part :-).