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© Copyright, 2000 to 2010, by Leonard Bucklin.
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Attorney David Tirella has spent years as an expert witness hunter, finding and hiring hundreds of expert witnesses for other attorneys. He looks for a four "P" expert. Read what he says. It's good advice. A Four "P" Expert The process of selecting experts can be narrowed down to four simple questions. If all four questions can be answered in the affirmative, then the type of quality witness that will help advance any litigation case has been found. I refer to this type of exceptional expert witness as a "four P expert." A "four P expert" is a person who has the following qualifications: Practitioner; Professor in his or her field of study; Published, who Presents well in front of a jury. Practitioner. The first "P" of a "four P expert" stands for practitioner. Dictionary.com defines a practitioner as "one who practices something, especially an occupation, profession, or technique." Practitioners are engineers, technicians, physicians, surgeons, dentists, scientists, counselors, and hundreds of other jobs. Expert witnesses who possess practitioner experience have an advantage in testifying before a jury because they routinely perform the very procedure or practice that is being questioned in the litigation. A practitioner expert witness can look the jurors in the eye and confidently assure them that his or her opinions are correct. This confidence stems from the fact that the practitioner expert successfully performs the questioned procedure on a regular basis. An expert witness who has little or no hands-on experience can be vulnerable to cross examination, even if the expert has an impressive curriculum vitae. An expert witness with practitioner experience, on the other hand, can quiet critics, whether they are judge, jury, or opposing counsel contending that the expert is merely restating opinions he has only read about. Quite simply, there is no substitute for doing. Published. The second "P" of a "four P expert" stands for published. An expert who has published peer review professional journal articles, chapters in texts, or books will have a strong working knowledge of all published opinions and counter opinions on the area in question. A published expert witness can explain to a jury how his or her opinions agree or disagree with other national published experts. An expert witness who has published in peer review publications gets the benefit of the jury's understanding that her research and opinions have been deemed worthy to publish for all the world to see. In short, this kind of witness has authority and veracity. Professor. The third "P" of a "four P expert" stands for professor. An expert witness with teaching experience, especially in the area in question, is a tremendous advantage. Virtually every civil law suit needs such a teaching witness to help explain the issues of liability, causation, and damages to the jury. Further, such a witness will be able to explain these issues and opinions in a clear and concise manner that is ideally suited for a courtroom presentation. Not all expert witnesses have such teaching experience, and hence may not be ideal for creating a teaching environment for the jury. Who is better qualified to teach a jury than a quality teacher? Presentation. The fourth "P" of a "four P expert" stands for presentation. Research tells us that for many individuals, the messenger is just as important as the message. If this research is accurate, then trial lawyers must be sensitive to what their expert witnesses look and sound like in hope of having a messenger to which the jury can easily relate. Credibility and personal likeability are intertwined with actual content of the message. If time is not an issue in the case, then a personal visit to any new potential expert witness is well worth the time and effort in order to ascertain how the expert presents. Having a one-on-one meeting with the potential expert witness can help to resolve any potential issues that a jury might have with the witness. |
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A BAEDEKER TO THE TRIBAL COURT Republished here with the kind permission of the North Dakota Law Review, which is one of the prime law reviews publishing articles on Native American legal issues. When I started work as a temporary judge at the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation, I had set foot on the reservation perhaps a half dozen times, only one of which, my employment interview with Standing Rock Tribal Chairman Ron His Horse Is Thunder four days earlier, was other than a visit to the Prairie Knights Casino. Since law school, I had firmly believed that one could never comprehend either the rule against perpetuities or Indian law. I had never handled a matter in tribal court and assumed it to be inherently unapproachable. .... I remain firmly convinced as to the rule against perpetuities..... As to the tribal court, I have found it to be a user-friendly amalgam of Sioux and white culture and practices.... I am going to try to provide a guide to the uninitiated—a Baedeker ..... Read the rest of Judge Zuger's guide to understand how to handle litigation in one tribe's court system. From experience on various tribal reservations, this editor can state that Zuger's article give helpful insights into litigation in some of the Native American courts. |
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"Mr. Attorney, do not correct
the expert’s typo errors." There are right ways and wrong ways in which attorneys can interact with their own expert....Read more. |
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The following article originally appeared in Facts & Findings, NALA’s quarterly magazine for paralegals. It's good advice in handling litigation. Beehler is now a successful trial lawyer, sought by both insurers and plaintiff's counsel seeking trial counsel. Being sought by parties on both sides of litigation is a sure mark of reputation for skill in handling litigation.
Make Yourself Indispensable: Take the
Bull by the Horns.
When I was a Certified Legal Assistant, I worked for an attorney who embraced the use of paralegals in litigation practice. Leonard Bucklin, Esq., believed that it was the paralegals who were responsible for moving cases along. He also believed that paralegals could, and should, do much of the work traditionally ascribed to lawyers — always mindful of ethical rules against practicing law without a license. Having been mentored under his philosophy, I have tried to follow it in my years of practice as a litigator. Move the Case The most important suggestion I can make to paralegals to make them indispensable in litigation is to be assertive with the files—do not wait to be told what to do. As an experienced paralegal, you already know what to do, so go ahead and do it. Paralegals at my firm have the authority to do what they believe needs to be done on a file, so long as it does not consume a lot of time and cost the clients a lot of money. Think outside the box and don’t be afraid to follow a hunch or unusual approach. An unconventional approach might lead to the “smoking gun” that could win the case. Even if you strike out, you are demonstrating a thorough course of action in handling the case. My experience has been that paralegals seldom get into trouble for doing too much on a case as opposed to not doing what is expected. In aggressively handling a litigation case, checklists can be most useful. These can include a list of procedures on how to handle a file, or checklists for interviewing witnesses, working with experts, and numerous other duties. Remember that checklists are simply guides and typically are not all-inclusive. Think outside the box. Client Contact As both a former paralegal and an attorney, I have seen that paralegals generally have more contact with clients. It has also been my experience that clients tend to relate better to a paralegal than to an attorney. Whether this is because lawyers intimidate clients, or because paralegals are simply more approachable is immaterial. Use this situation to your advantage. By being in frequent contact and keeping clients informed, you will be able to better monitor their expectations and to foster better cooperation. Clients, whether plaintiff or defendant, can be your biggest source of information. They may be able to identify witnesses and tell whether they are liability witnesses or damages witnesses. Clients also may have important documentation that the paralegal should obtain, and they may have ... [Read the entire article in the archives of NALA, the National Association of Legal Assistants.]
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