Accountability

A father without a father

Has difficulty balancing.

A master without a master

Is dangerous.

We look up to our parents, our teachers, and our leaders with trust and expectation. Their responsibility is to guide us, educate us, and even make judgments on our behalf when circumstances are uncertain. Ultimately, they are to bring us to the point where we can make our own decisions, based on the wisdom they have helped us develop.

Now, you are your own person, a parent, a teacher, a leader. And you are more than that: a law firm partner is a teacher's teacher, a leader's leader, a lawyer's lawyer. You make your own decisions now, but as a partner the decision has great weight, awesome power - the power to bring about justice, or the miscarriage of justice. Usually lawyers are rigorous and methodological in all aspects of their work. According to our research, this rigor does not extend to the realm of selecting expert witnesses. Too often, we select experts without undertaking a thorough, methodical search. And yet, an expert witness can win or lose the case

Law firm partners are wise leaders, but the potential for mistakes is great, such as when selecting an expert witness -- what person can be right all the time? A simple lapse at the wrong time can cause confusion, psychological scars, even great disaster if a jury is wrongly persuaded. That is why we need a master for the master, a leader for the leaders, an expert for the experts. This prevents errors of power.  In the past even kings had wise advisors.

Every lawyer who would select an expert witness should have such assistance.  And who should this mentor be? Let us invoke not deities but pragmatism. It is experience that is the ultimate teacher.  Round Table Group connects attorneys with expert witnesses in all fields.  Round Table Group has a network of 95,000 expert witnesses. Round Table Group can connect its clients - those engaged in important litigation matters - with other experts who have "been there, done that," who have the experience to share, the knowledge to provide, to ensure that the expert witness is not a "dangerous expert witness."  [Adapted from "365 Tao."]

Russ W. Rosenzweig

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