Allison Guidette is the VP and General Manager of Westlaw Litigation, of which Westlaw Round Table Group is a proud part. She recently took some time to answer some questions for me about the future of WRTG, and some broader insights into the legal industry.

"Why this foray into the expert witness referral industry?

Westlaw Round Table Group is a natural and valuable addition to Thomson Reuter's expanding suite of integrated litigation content, tools and services -- collectively called Westlaw Litigator. Westlaw Litigator is designed to meet the evolving needs of litigators by helping them at each stage of a case to optimize productivity and produce the highest quality work product in the least amount of time.

We repeatedly go back to our clients to ask them how else Thomson Reuters can support them. In the past year, we have heard repeated request for better, faster access to the world's best expert witnesses. Clients tell us that finding ideal experts can be time consuming and frustrating. In response, Thomson Reuters began looking for a partner, which brought us to the door of Round Table Group, the premier expert witness referral business in the legal industry. We of course acquired Round Table Group - now called Westlaw Round Table Group (WRTG) - about three months ago.

Our clients have expressed great enthusiasm for this new line of business and the quality and service they can receive from the WRTG team. Most critically, they share that leveraging WRTG saves them valuable time - that they can better deploy in legal thinking and writing - and that WRTG finds them superior experts than they would be able to uncover on their own.

"Can you offer some insight into industry trends?"

We perceive a number of critical trends impacting the legal industry, including:
-    Cautious optimism by large and small firms that we have "bottomed out" in most practice areas and work is beginning to pick up. That said, litigation is recovering more slowly than other practice areas - such as in corporate - but it is starting to grow again.
-    Continued focus by corporate clients on getting value from outside counsel. Even when legal budgets are freer and litigation more voluminous, we anticipate that corporate legal departments will remain focused on getting more from each hour worked by their counsel. Also, GCs are less willing to pay junior associates to learn how to practice law, forcing law firms to rethink their business models somewhat. There is some pressure to explore "alternative fee arrangements" but our sense is that most corporations are not interested in fixed-fee projects for anything but truly routine matters. What they want is value and predictability.
-    We expect MDLs and class actions to grow significantly in the next year. Certainly the Gulf oil spill is one example but we have seen a significant uptick in MDLs in the past few years which we do not see abating. Related, we see smaller firms remaining focused on their niche practice areas but banding together in loose teams to support the needs of large, complex cases and competing with bigger firms.
-    E-discovery continues to drain litigation resources. That said, firms are again beginning to invest in tools to manage e-discovery. They want tools that integrate together, making it easy to toggle from one stage of a case (say, legal research) to another (say, case analysis). This is very consistent with the strategy of Thomson Reuters, where our litigation technologies interrelate in very meaningful ways to ease the work of our litigation clients.

"Anything new our experts can expect to see in the weeks/months ahead rising from our merger?" 

I think that the merger of Thomson Reuters and Round Table Group creates great opportunities for both organizations and our expert partners. Certainly the Westlaw brand and resources will help to fuel growth of Round Table Group, creating more interesting cases for our expert partners. Additionally, West is historically a publishing house, so there may be more avenues to explore with our partners in creating content. Finally, we have plans - with the approval of our expert partners - to leverage Westlaw.com and the new platform, WestlawNext, to expose our experts to literally millions of attorneys worldwide. This should create great opportunities for interesting cases.

Expert witnesses travel. A lot. Whether visiting a client, appearing in a court room, or traveling for an on-site analysis, Experts buy plane tickets, stay in hotels, eat meals, pay for taxis, pay for internet, parking, and so much more. Many experts negotiate to submit these as expenses to their clients, when they are case-related. However, for experts who absorb all or some of these costs, there are allowable deductions you can claim on your taxes.

You can deduct ordinary and necessary expenses you have when you travel away from home on business. The type of expense you can deduct depends on the facts and your circumstances, according to IRS publication 463, but industry trade conferences can generally be deducted, providing you can demonstrate that your attendance benefits your trade or business.

Of course, I am not a professional tax expert, so please consult your tax pro.

Many Westlaw Round Table Group expert witnesses have home offices, as discussed in previous postings, reflecting a growing trend in telecommuting. Homepreneurism saves money and time commuting, may promote greater efficiency, and might permit certain tax deductions based on your home office. Maryam K. Ansari provides some excellent insight into the home office deductions, and risks. The American Bar Association Family Legal Guide offers some good advice on home office deductions as well. With tax day rapidly approaching, you should check this out!   

I was speaking with an expert in DC one month back, a former college friend, who regularly bids on government contracts. He was interested in becoming an expert witness and was picking my brain in exchange for a meaty cheeseburger like only the DC Chophouse can serve. I told him that experts set their own prices, and that an interesting new trend was that many expert witnesses are now negotiating that rate more, considering the value of building a business relationship with a particular client.

His reply is interesting to me. In his line of work, the projects he wants to see usually come with a maximum dollar amount the client is willing to pay. I wonder if this approach might work in the expert witness industry? Could total cost of the project (report, etc) be predetermined? Ex: Experts do a report for a predetermined fee. What do you think? Does that model seem useful for the expert witness industry?





 

 Automotive recall experts, warranty experts and automotive engineers of all types could soon see increased work due to the flurry of probable lawsuits against Toyota. A CNN Money article notes that the cost to Toyota from settlements could even be higher than the estimated $2 billion price tag for handling just the recalls.In addition, with the huge pressures the larger automobile industry faces, and the threat of even more major car brands going out of business, we see a growing demand for such experts.

I love London, and there are a couple of really good conferences our UK members (and any experts traveling abroad) might want to consider attending.

This year's Annual Bond Solon Expert Witness Conference is Friday the 12th of November, 2010 at the Church House Conference Centre in London. This is I believe the largest gathering of expert witnesses in the UK, and offers some terrific opportunities to develop your skills, grow your network, and build your business. Bond Salon offers training for expert witnesses with non-legal backgrounds. With a stellar reputation, this should be an exceptionally good conference. You can sign up now, and get a special 'early bird' price. 

You can develop your expert witness business by attending the "Marketing and Managing your Expert Witness Business" seminar on February 24th, 2010, presented by the Expert Witness Institute, a non-profit advocacy and training organization based in London aimed at working with expert witnesses.

The Society for Expert Witnesses is holding their annual conference on May 14-15th in Northampton. This non-profit organization is run 'by experts for exerts', and, among other benefits, offers a new expert mentoring program.

Maybe I will see you there?
 

Depends who you ask. But 71% of corporate counsels, and 61% of private practice lawyers agree that pricing and fees is the #1 issue facing the legal industry, according to the recent Lex/Nex survey. Undoubtedly fodder for a blogosphere feeding frenzy, this commissioned survey also shows that most (77%) private practice lawyers believe their clients are too focused on cost.

The impact of these, and other noted trends, has a serious impact on the expert witness industry.

"What litigation trends should I expect from 2010?" one of my favorite-to-work-with experts asked me a couple of week back. Its was a question I had been hearing a lot lately, and I had been asking it almost as often. Here is what I see as some of the trends in the expert witness industry.

For 2010, I see three major trends in the expert witness industry: Earlier identification and retaining of experts,  increased sensitivity to cost by clients, and an increased amount of litigation in environmental damages, financial misconduct, and in the area of labor and employment. What does this mean for expert witnesses?

First, there will be a greater amount of time between the search/identification/interviewing/retaining of experts by clients on the one hand, and the actual start date of experts, on the other. Experts will need to be able to work within a longer time frame, requiring careful expert-client coordination on invoicing.

Second, and we saw this more and more last year, Clients will be much more cost-sensitive, requesting budgets from experts, relying more on video conferencing and other cost saving measures, and taking a harder line on negotiating rates. Experts who include this cost sensitivity in to their marketing and presentations will have an advantage over their competitors.

Finally, based on industry reports and expert observations, we expect to see an increased demand for expert witnesses in many areas of litigation, perhaps particularly in environmental damages matters, in employment and labor disputes, as well as in continued (and increasingly broad) litigation from the fall-out of the financial collapse of 2008-09.

Table Group Group membership can help you take full advantage of the latest industry trends, with profile reviews, links to conferences, and marketing ideas. Just reach out to our skilled expert services coordinators, who are standing by to assist. 


  

Working from home is a growing trend, according to Caroline Tice, in her blog posting about "small business owners running viable businesses from their homes." or Homepreneurs. Anecdotal evidence has lead me to believe most expert witnesses also work from home-based office. If you are one of the over 13 million homepreneurs in America, you probably already know what I will be be suggesting, but for everyone else, especially new experts, just starting up in the field, here are some things every expert witness needs for working at home. Undoubtedly, this list will grow.

Get up to speed on  web conferencing and internet presentation skills, such as Webex. I tried the trial version of Webex and was pleasantly surprised on how easy it was to install, understand, and use! Its an easy way to show your clients that it does not matter where you work from. Get up to speed on video conferencing, and offer your clients the opportunity to see you, even if they don't have the ability to reciprocate. Most new laptops and monitors have small cameras built into them already, but you might also want to consider investing 30-80 bucks or so into a good web cam, which can mount on your monitor or rest on a desk or shelf. Tip: place it so that the background behind you reflects the type of image you want to present.
 
Make sure you have regularly scheduled professional face time with colleagues, at conferences, association meetings, continuing education, etc. One of the hazards of working from home, as opposed to a large office or university department, is isolation from your colleagues, and from potential clients! Professional conferences are an excellent way to keep up with the newest developments and ideas and people in your field.

My own personal necessity is a good a lock on the refrigerator, buts that's another story.

I's like to hear from other homepreneurs on what they think of this post!

Twice in my years here at Round Table Group an expert has withdrawn from a case. This most recent time was back in 2008. When we finally got the wayward expert witness on the phone, he refused to say why he withdrew, only that it wasn't worth his while. Speculation around the virtual water cooler was that nefarious corporate pressure had forced the expert's withdrawal.But all speculation aside, there are some fairly serious consequences to abandoning a client mid-case as Edward Hoffman writes in his posting.

True Story: There was a second example, but it turns out the expert had actually died mid-case. Fortunately for the left-in-the-lurch client, she was using a professional expert witness referral firm that was able to draw on the vast network of Round Table Group expert witnesses and professional staff to find a replacement in a timely manner.