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The lucrative economics of expert witnesses

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Re: The lucrative economics of expert witnesses

#31

Post by daniel-cussen »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #2

I've done several patent trials as a lay/fact witness in cases involving patents related to an employment contract addendum I created when I worked for Amazon. The contract described various early web tech hacks (such as embedding session IDs in the URL) and denied Amazon the chance to patent them (0). In the first one, I was in court while the plaintiff's damages expert witness (there to estimate how much this large…

Well laying out that he was payed $2 million per year pro rata when the guy--in court--clearly does not have that stature in the economy, which you can tell by his appearance and bearing and how he speaks--is suspicious. Like these guys are negotiating in court, he himself is negotiating in court on behalf of his client, the fee looks like he's cashing in with them as opposed to offering objectivity. Which doesn't exist, a smoke and mirror concept, but the idea is to reduce prejudice, meaning judge in the moment, with partiality switching, rather than being neutral, and the judges in the room, the one with the gable, the ones in the jury box, and the pews, everyone--switching back and forth until coming to rest on one side, with the amount of nuance or lack thereof they see fitting.

Re: The lucrative economics of expert witnesses

#32

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

WaitWaitWha wrote: post #23
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Expert witness testimony, at least in this case, isn't about evidence. It's a person, nominally an expert, saying what they think/know and providing some expert-y looking handwaving to back it up. You've got two choices (at least) as an attorney for the opposing party: one, get into a domain turf war with the "expert" about whether what they've said is correct; two, discount the "expert" personally. The problem with…

>It's a person, nominally an expert, saying what they think/know and providing some expert-y looking handwaving to back it up. Disagree. The other side have the ability to qualify the expert witness during voir dire [0]. The other side's also have the opportunity to find their expert to counter and bring in expertise. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voir_dire

What I meant was that expert witnesses are not in the courtroom to testify on matters of fact. They are presented (and potentially qualified) as "experts" and are their to tell the court their conclusions about some matter.

Re: The lucrative economics of expert witnesses

#33

Post by Retric »

DangitBobby wrote: post #26

I wonder how much the lawyer is being paid for their expertise? Kind of rich to imply that the expert witness' motivation should be called into question when that question could even more easily be turned around on the lawyer. Why would we believe any of the facts of the matter laid out by a lawyer when their paycheck (and future paychecks) depends on the outcome of the case? In fact, the lawyer is paid to lay out th…

It’s assumed that each side’s lawyer(s) is biased, expert witnesses on the other side tend to be viewed as neutral even if only one side is paying them. That’s often abused in court cases which is one reason they can command such huge checks.

Nobody is paying for an expert witness that helps the other side so a little bias one way or the other is helpful when pulling down those checks.

Re: The lucrative economics of expert witnesses

#34

Post by dboreham »

ghaff wrote: post #9

I co-authored an expert witness report once. We were paid about $500/hour. That wasn't out of line with what we normally charged clients but, it was actually quite a lucrative job for us given we charged for travel, research, etc. which were often at least partially unpaid time with our regular work. It was a very interesting project but it made you appreciate why big lawsuits cost so much. I think our expert witness…

Interesting. The two times I worked for litigators they told me they _never_ pay travel time. I even checked with my bil litigator (different industry) and he confirmed the practice. Otoh they said I could charge whatever hourly rate I wanted for actual work.

Re: The lucrative economics of expert witnesses

#35

Post by pfortuny »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #2

I've done several patent trials as a lay/fact witness in cases involving patents related to an employment contract addendum I created when I worked for Amazon. The contract described various early web tech hacks (such as embedding session IDs in the URL) and denied Amazon the chance to patent them (0). In the first one, I was in court while the plaintiff's damages expert witness (there to estimate how much this large…

Yeah, that is (post facto) obviously answered truly saying “including background studies around hundreds but I do not keep count”.

Otherwise you are being forced to be untruthful despite thinking that you are objective.

Re: The lucrative economics of expert witnesses

#36

Post by DangitBobby »

Retric wrote: post #33
DangitBobby wrote: post #26

I wonder how much the lawyer is being paid for their expertise? Kind of rich to imply that the expert witness' motivation should be called into question when that question could even more easily be turned around on the lawyer. Why would we believe any of the facts of the matter laid out by a lawyer when their paycheck (and future paychecks) depends on the outcome of the case? In fact, the lawyer is paid to lay out th…

It’s assumed that each side’s lawyer(s) is biased, expert witnesses on the other side tend to be viewed as neutral even if only one side is paying them. That’s often abused in court cases which is one reason they can command such huge checks. Nobody is paying for an expert witness that helps the other side so a little bias one way or the other is helpful when pulling down those checks.

I think it's worth pointing out even if it's "assumed." One should not cast stones from glass houses, and the jury needs to be reminded that a lawyer's framing of facts should be taken with a gigantic pinch of salt.

Re: The lucrative economics of expert witnesses

#37

Post by InefficientRed »

harrybr wrote: post #18

I've done a few pieces of expert witness work over the 2-3 years (on deceptive design / dark patterns). Although expert witness hourly rates may look high, it really depends on how many hours you bill in a given period. If you're an expert in something very niche, there might not be enough cases in a given year to give you a meaningful income. Don't quit your tech job yet. Expert witness work is usually only lucrativ…

The real expert witness cash cow is to become the go-to expert witness on a particular issue/incident and then travel around to every state representing various plaintiffs against the same single/small set of defendants.

Re: The lucrative economics of expert witnesses

#38

Post by cool_dude85 »

DangitBobby wrote: post #26

I wonder how much the lawyer is being paid for their expertise? Kind of rich to imply that the expert witness' motivation should be called into question when that question could even more easily be turned around on the lawyer. Why would we believe any of the facts of the matter laid out by a lawyer when their paycheck (and future paychecks) depends on the outcome of the case? In fact, the lawyer is paid to lay out th…

But everyone knows the lawyer for one of the parties in a trial is representing his party and is not some neutral observer. But expert witnesses are presented as essentially neutral experts making their own determinations on areas of expertise. Being explicit about the money paid to the expert makes the situation much more clear; not so for the lawyer.

Re: The lucrative economics of expert witnesses

#39

Post by Fomite »

harrybr wrote: post #18

I've done a few pieces of expert witness work over the 2-3 years (on deceptive design / dark patterns). Although expert witness hourly rates may look high, it really depends on how many hours you bill in a given period. If you're an expert in something very niche, there might not be enough cases in a given year to give you a meaningful income. Don't quit your tech job yet. Expert witness work is usually only lucrativ…

I ended up having some expert witness work during the pandemic, about pandemic related stuff.

It was interesting, and engaging, and was indeed a nice bit of side income for a bit, but I'd be happy if I was never called upon again.

Re: The lucrative economics of expert witnesses

#40

Post by Fomite »

z2 wrote: post #7

The bigger non-financial question, as the Inside Job (2010 documentary) claims, is that this expert witness ecosystem is a conflict of interest for academic experts. If I am a real estate economist, and an investment bank wanted to hire me to testify that the mortgage-backed securities bubble wasn't the result of negligent behavior, wouldn't I be inclined to publish papers to that effect? Naturally I'd also leave my…

In contrast, my expert witness work is expressly founded on papers I published, and it absolutely goes on my CV.
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