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How to Be a Successful Expert Witness, August 22, 2012

Falmouth, MA

Sea Crest Beach Hotel, Falmouth, Cape Cod, Massachusetts

Executive Summary: Expert witnessing is exciting and rewarding. Knowledgeable professionals can increase their income and find personal enrichment by serving the court as expert witnesses. Time spent by experts on such matters is commonly billed out at more than $200/hr, and can reach as much as $1,100 per hour for some professionals. How to Be a Successful Expert Witness is an intense, insight-based participatory workshop that is designed to help you to optimize your legal consulting business. This course is appropriate for professionals with all levels of legal-consulting experience. Attendees will learn from an experienced testifying expert in a relaxed but fast tempo environment. Whether you wish to pursue expert witnessing as a vocation or avocation, you will learn how to develop, build, run, and maintain your successful, sustainable, and ethical expert witness practice.

Learning Objectives:
• Areas of expertise and practice – staying within your sandbox
• Billing and collection
• Curriculum vitae insights
• Ethics of expert witnessing: maintaining your independence and objectivity
• Expectations of the client, jury and judge. How to exceed them
• Fee levels – walking the tightrope
• Evidence-based opinions
• Marketing without damaging your practice
• Qualifications and methodology challenges, Daubert, Robinson, Frye, etc.
• Report writing insights – Word processing, Rule 702, and more
• Retention agreements that serve you and your client’s interests
• Risk management techniques for your practice
• Role of the expert witness in civil litigation and criminal court
• Staff issues
• Testifying skills and techniques for deposition and trial
• Trial exhibits and demonstrations – seeing is believing

Distinguished Faculty: Stephen A. Batzer, PhD, PE, is a consulting forensic engineer and automotive safety expert with a national practice. His education includes BS, MS and PhD degrees in engineering. He is a licensed professional engineer in both Michigan and Arkansas. He is a retired US Army Lieutenant Colonel of Ordnance. He worked in the US automotive supplier industry, designing and manufacturing fasteners. He has taught engineering coursework at 4 universities and to a variety of industrial audiences. He regularly gives invited lectures on a variety of topics including expert witnessing, automotive safety, forensic engineering, and the Darwinian evolution vs. Design controversy.

Registration Information: The $595 tuition includes a continental breakfast, lunch with faculty, a detailed conference manual, and a fast-moving, content rich learning experience.

Continuing Education Information: Note: If your specialty does not appear below and you desire credits, please contact Karen Cerbarano (Karen@seak.com). We can often obtain desired credits upon request, but unfortunately, obtaining some types of credits are not feasible. Please register early, as we can only apply for credits after your registration form has been received and it can take time to get the requested approvals back from the accrediting agencies.

Accident Reconstructionists:The ACTAR Continuing Education Unit has approved this program for 8 CEUs. Accountants: Earn 9.3 CPE credits in the field of study of Specialized Knowledge and Applications. SEAK, Inc. is registered with the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA) as a sponsor of continuing professional education on the National Registry of CPE Sponsors. State boards of accountancy have final authority on the acceptance of individual courses for CPE credit. Complaints regarding registered sponsors may be addressed to the National Registry of CPE Sponsors, 150 Fourth Avenue North, Suite 700, Nashville, TN, 37219-2417. Web site: www.nasba.org For SEAK, Inc.’s complaint and program cancellation policies please call SEAK, Inc. at 508-457-1111. There are no prerequisites for this intermediate group-live program. No advanced preparation is required. Appraisers: The American Society of Appraisers will accept 7.75 continuing education hours for this program. Attorneys: Credit varies by state. Continuing legal education credits for attorneys will only be applied for if requested in writing when sending in the registration form for the conference. Please contact Karen Cerbarano (Karen@seak.com) with any questions.Engineers: No credits offered for this course. Life Care Planners: The Commission on Health Care Certification (CHCC) has given the course 7.75 CEUs. Course number 1195. Physicians: SEAK, Inc. is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education to provide continuing medical education for physicians. SEAK, Inc. designates this live activity for a maximum of 7.75 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

Location/Hotel Accommodations
The Sea Crest Beach Hotel (www.seacrestbeachotel.com, 800-225-3110) is a full-service beach front hotel nestled in a beautiful oceanfront location in Falmouth, Massachusetts and has recently undergone an $18,000,000 renovation. A limited block of rooms will be available at special rates at the site hotel ($235 Single/Double). Rooms are limited and this rate expires July 21, 2012. To make your reservations please call 800-225-3110 and mention that you are with SEAK, Inc. These rates are available for a limited time and on a limited number of rooms so you are strongly encouraged to make your reservations as soon as possible. Falmouth is one of the Cape’s best playgrounds for vacationers of all ages and interests. It features over 75 miles of scenic coastline, three ferries to Martha’s Vineyard, countless dining options, numerous antique shops, the Shining Sea bike trail, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (which found the Titanic and Bismarck, among other famous accomplishments), numerous public golf courses and ocean temperatures and daytime high temperatures which both average in the 70s during the month of August. Nantucket ferries run from Hyannis, which is approximately thirty minutes (by car) from Falmouth.

SCHEDULE

7:00–8:00 Continental Breakfast and Networking Opportunity

8:00–8:15 Role of Expert Witnesses in the Courtroom
What is in bounds and what is out of bounds? Attendees will learn the proper role of expert witnesses in both civil and criminal court. Topics include Federal Rule of Evidence 702 and the types of specific assignments experts can expect from retaining counsel. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. Learning Objective: Discuss the role of an expert witness.

8:15–8:45 Sandbox Basics - Your Niche in the Expert Witness Marketplace
Getting established as a recognized expert seems to be an overnight phenomenon for some, but requires years of time and effort for others. Faculty will explain the importance of identifying your proper niche. Attendees will be provided with a protocol for researching their niche, determining the proper fit and cultivating their niche to its fullest potential. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. Learning Objective: Explain the importance of identifying the appropriate niche.

8:45–9:15 Common Traits of Successful Expert Witnesses
Why are some experts more successful and credible than others? Faculty and attendees will discuss what some of the nation’s top experts have in common and how they made themselves who they are. Techniques and rules of thumb will be drawn. This segment will show experts all the controllable elements that affect their image and how to best project a positive image. Topics include marketing, business cards, firm names, case selection, telephone procedures, testifying extensively for plaintiffs/defendants, on-line activities, etc. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. Learning Objective: Discuss ways experts can provide high level service.

9:15–10:00 Excellence as SOP: Exceeding Client Expectations
Faculty will present, with the assistance of the attendees, the best practices for: Initial interviews with counsel; Case intake; Correspondence; Reports (written and oral); Depositions and Trials. Attendees will be presented with numerous suggestions for exceeding the expectations of retaining counsel that meet ethical muster.

10:00–10:15 Break and Networking Opportunity

10:15–11:00 CV’s that work
Why do you have a CV, rather than a resume? This and other topics will be addressed, such as how your CV affects your business, how it can improve your credibility with the judge, and how it can damage your effectiveness unnecessarily. Actual Hall of Fame and Hall of Shame CVs will be reviewed. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. Learning Objective: List techniques for developing a proper CV.

11:00–12:00 Daubert and Other Qualification Challenges
In-depth discussion of the legal requirements of Daubert and FRE 702 as they relate to how an expert forms and expresses opinion(s) and the admissibility of the opinions. Numerous light hearted (for us) examples will be discussed. The lecture continues with practical advice on how to avoid being caught in a Daubert nightmare and how to use the Daubert criteria as a roadmap to bolster the persuasiveness of any opinion. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. Learning Objective: Identify the requirements of Daubert.

12:00–12:45 Provided Lunch With Faculty

12:45–1:45 Report Best Practices
Faculty will review the most efficient methods for dealing with requests for preliminary, draft, and other written reports. Best practices for responding to input from counsel, formatting, editing, controls over release of the report, signing, and proofreading will be provided. There will also be an in-depth discussion on the use and misuse of computer templates to assist in report writing.

1:45–2:15 Best Practices in Expressing and Supporting Your Opinions
Even the best researched opinions are unpersuasive if not expressed with confidence, legal sufficiency and adequate bases. How do you know what you know? Credentials open the door, but don’t seal the deal. An expert’s opinion is only as strong as the facts, research and analysis upon which it is based. This segment will consist of advice and numerous examples on how and how not to express and support your expert opinion(s). Included is a discussion of standards, using objective supporting data, citing research, cherry-picking, and margins of error. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. Learning Objective: Discuss methods experts can use to marketing their services.

2:15–2:45 Commenting on Opposing Experts and Their Opinions
“Do you consider your counterpart Dr. Sleaze qualified to testify?” Commenting on another expert’s opinions is an area that gets many experts into unnecessary difficulty. In this segment experts will learn the right way and wrong way to comment upon another expert’s opinions. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. Learning Objective: List best practices in supporting your opinions.

2:45–3:00 Management Issues
Do you answer your own phone? Maybe you should, but then again, maybe not. Attendees will learn myriad techniques that will help them run an efficient and successful forensic consulting practice. These include optimum new case intake procedures, billings systems, document receipt and retention policies, support staff training and instruction, file maintenance, trial scheduling, procedures for keeping your CV upto-date, how to account for all time spent on the case, support staff training, responsibilities and boundaries, security and confidentiality protocols and developing and using forms, templates and checklists. Leadership principles will undergird this presentation.

3:00–3:15 Break and Networking Opportunity

3:15–3:45 Best Practices in Dealing With Counsel
A frank discussion of how to best deal with retaining and opposing counsel. Included is an explanation of the importance of maintaining boundaries, how to best communicate with retaining counsel, the importance of not giving away your theories or reviewing any confidential information until you have been retained, how to deal with non-responsive or incompetent lawyers, how to deal with failure to prepare you for deposition or trial, being pushed beyond your true area of expertise, how to handle “rush” requests for reports and opinions and how to avoid problems before they materialize. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. Learning Objective: Identify methods to properly deal with billing and collections.

3:45–4:15 Deposition Best Practices
Attendees will be provided with an in-depth look at scheduling, billing, postponements, cancellations, errata sheets, and retention/ destruction of deposition transcripts. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. Learning Objective: Explain deposition best practices.

4:15–4:45 Best Practices in Fee Setting, Fee Schedules & Agreements, Billing and Collections
How much should I charge, and why? Experts will learn how to correctly value their time and set their fees. They will be taught the importance of not undercharging and how to determine exactly what their time is worth. Also included is a detailed discussion of the amount and frequency of retainers, whether retainers should be non-refundable, cancellation fees, expense reimbursement and proven techniques to improve collections of expert witness and consulting fees. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. Learning Objective: Identify ways to best deal with counsel.

4:45–5:00 Conclusion and Takeaways
Concluding remarks will be preceded by an attendee and faculty generated numbered list of action steps and takeaways from the covered material that attendees will take home to their practices to start, build and run a better and more successful expert witness practice.

Price: $595.00