Tips for working with your Forensic Consultant

The popularity of police crime scene forensic investigation shows on TV has resulted in a common misunderstanding of the meaning of the word forensic. The word forensic simply means something that is related to the courts or legal proceedings. Forensic also refers to public discussion or debate. When I was in high school, the forensic club was the debate team; they were not junior CSI officers! The members of the Forensic Consultants Association are a diverse group of professionals. The one thing we all share in common is our work in the legal arena. Most of us work with attorneys and/or insurance professionals. We may be retained as consultants in a legal matter to provide honest and objective opinions in our respective areas of expertise. If the attorney-client finds that our opinions will be beneficial to his case, he has the option of designating the consultant to be an expert witness to testify under oath in deposition and ultimately at trial.

Here are some tips to our attorney-clients who already know everything in the previous paragraph:

Plan ahead! Retain your experts as consultants first, long before the designation cutoff date. This will allow you to get their opinions before you are committed to designating them as your expert.
Don’t be stingy with the evidence. Give the consultant/expert all of the materials they request. Holding back on certain documents or other pieces of evidence in an effort to save cost is like stepping over dollars to pick up pennies. An expert who gets blind sided on the witness stand by evidence that you have not shared with him may prove embarrassing to your case.
Meet with your consultant/expert face-to-face as often as your budget will allow in order to familiarize yourself with your expert’s communications style.
Be sure to discuss with your expert the questions that you plan to ask at trial. (Do not try to do this 15 minutes before they take the stand!) The expert may be also be able to suggest some useful questions for you to ask that will bring out key opinions.

This article by Jack C. Debes, Ph.D., was part of his Vice President's messagepublished in The San Diego Daily Transcript on April 12, 2006 as part of the Forensic Consultants Association Newsletter. Dr. Debes is a bioengineer who specializes in the areas of biomechanics, accident reconstruction, biomaterials, and medical implant design. He is a member of John Fiske Brown, Assoc., San Diego’s most experienced forensic engineering group.

For more articles from FCA, please visit the
Forensic Consultants Association Article Index

To locate a consultant / expert witness, please visit our Forensic Specialist search page.