Attorney Fee Expert Witnesses: a specialty practice

Attorney fee expert witnesses are few.  They are in a specialty practice that demands five special capabilities.

1. Knowledge of legal ethics, and legal standards for attorney fee awards.  The expert must have a familiarity, awareness, and understanding gained through study of legal ethics and legal standards for attorney fee awards. A reasonable attorney fee is a matter that involves both legal ethics and also the considerable body of law on the  legal standards for determining a reasonable fee to be awarded.
    
2. Knowledge of legal process time and requisite skill level.  Providing a proper analysis of what was done demands that the expert have considerable experience and knowledge of what constitutes a reasonable amount of attorney time for the tasks done, and what is the requisite skill level needed for the tasks.
    
3. Ability and willingness to do the required -  time intensive - factual research and analysis. There must be factual research and analysis of what tasks were done (or not done) by the attorneys seeing a legal fee award. Then there must be an expert attorney analysis of what reasonably needed to be done versus what was done (or not done). This research and analysis is a time-intensive process; a person unwilling or unable to devote the time to do the proper research is not using the accepted methodology of the specialty field of legal fee analysis.
    
4. Reporting and proper methodology. Today's expert must be able to write a detailed report, based on expert methodology that will pass Daubert-style attacks.
    
5. Clarity in testimony. There must be communication by the expert to the fact-finder, by clear testimony in depositions and trials.

Attorneys have honored Leonard Bucklin by electing him a Fellow of the International Academy of Trial Lawyers, which strives to recognizes 500 top trial lawyers in the United States. Bucklin is a trial lawyer who is also an ethicist and educator. He was for five years the managing editor of the ethics section of eDicta published by the Tort, Trial & Insurance Practice Section of the American Bar Association, and is a clinical ethicist for corporate management, providing ethics training and counsel. He is the author of over 17 books and articles on litigation, ethics, and management.

The web site is descriptive, educational, and extensive. (Hundreds of files of information and links.) Various divisions of this website include: trial and expert witness law, advice on choosing an expert witness, how to handle attorney legal fees disputes and obtain expert witness testimony, and substantive and procedural law of litigation. Still other divisions discuss corporate ethics seminar education and law firm management. Explore this site by using the buttons in the left border (which change as you go from page to page). Use the Site Contents page if you want a listing of the main pages.

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