As statements of an expert witness's "academic life," CVs can tell one story. However, some expert witness consultants have broad experience or knowledge of multiple areas and maintain multiple CVs to accentuate different aspects of their expertise.

Steven Babitsky warns experts against this practice for many reasons. He says, "It smacks of dishonesty... the expert only presents each client with part of the picture and is therefore suppressing information about herself."

If the expert is, in fact, a regular witness on several topics, the opposition will likely find any available information. In their cross-examination, they will plant doubt about the expert witness by exposing "hidden" information. In his book, How to Become a Dangerous Expert Witness, Babitsky highlights a potentially damaging situation in the scenario below.

"Counsel: Do you tell them that your CV is accurate and complete even though it leaves out an area of your expertise?

Expert: That's not the case, it's just a different way to describe and emphasize my expertise.

Counsel: You change your CV so that it's more likely that you'll get hired in each circumstance. Is that a fair characterization?"

Maintaining multiple expert witness CVs can give opposing counsel unnecessary ammunition to discredit the expert and should be avoided.

Clark

Categories
Experts in the Field, Working with RTG

Tags
Credibility
expert witness consultant
resume

0 TrackBacks
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this post: 1 Expert Witness and 1 CV

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.roundtablegroup.com/movabletype/mt-tb.cgi/176

Post a comment