What Is the Difference Between Consulting and Trial Experts?
A consulting expert helps the attorney prepare the case and does not appear at trial. All of the materials and communications with the attorney are beyond discovery. However, if your consulting expert becomes your trial expert, the other side is entitled to discover those materials as needed for its case. When hiring a consulting expert it is best to consider the possibility that the expert will become the trial expert. It could be quite embarrassing to disclose that your first letter to the expert blatantly asked for help in preparing an advocacy report. Be careful with these requests. The best expert is not always the most expensive expert. Pension services make their money doing present value reports, not testifying in court. In fact, most larger companies consider the testimony of their witnesses a form of prospecting that each report has helped defray. Extremely skilled witnesses on present values can be hired for $75 to $150 an hour.
