In this episode…

Experts should review the pleadings before accepting an engagement, according to Mr. Steve Reese. Doing so ensures that you are comfortable putting forth your opinion in service of the engaging attorney’s conclusion. This may require some convincing and a non-disclosure agreement, but Mr. Reese finds it worthwhile.

Check out the entire episode for our discussion on direct client engagements, late payments, and understanding the limits of an attorney’s technical knowledge.

Episode Transcript:

Note:  Transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

Host:   Noah Bolmer, Round Table Group

Guest: Steve Reese, CEO of Reese Energy Consulting and Reese Energy Training

Noah Bolmer: Welcome to Engaging Experts. I’m your host Noah Bolmer, and I’m excited to welcome Mr. Steve Reese to the show. Mr. Reese is the CEO of Reese’s Energy Consulting, a full-service consulting firm serving the natural gas industry primarily, but not exclusively, and Reese Energy training. He is an expert in natural gas contracts, energy marketing, sales contracts, and a whole lot more. He holds a degree in business from the University of Central Oklahoma. Mr. Reese, thank you for joining me here on Engaging Experts.

Steve Reese: Thank you, Noah. My pleasure.

Noah Bolmer: You’ve been in the energy sector for decades. How did you first get into expert witnessing?

Steve Reese: This is year 45 for me in the energy space and when I left the corporate world in 1994, there were a couple of ideas that I had. One was to begin consulting. The first thing I thought was I have a niche in some of the contracts that I negotiate, so I’ll write some training courses. Those fed each other. Then I [was] approached as a potential expert witness in about 1995 and what was interesting was one side of this litigation approached me and when I read the pleadings. I realized I didn’t have conviction about their side. The other side approached me, and I began doing that. I never solicited for that, but all those types of engagements fed each other with respect to being known as an expert or being legitimatized with respect to a certain acumen or as a subject matter expert. It’s fed me well and now I have a staff that I move into these engagements as they come in the door.

Noah Bolmer: Let’s talk about those initial phone calls. When you first started you said you hadn’t solicited anything. You [were] contacted by both sides. How has that informed the way you take calls now? What is your current method for taking a call for a brand-new engagement? What are the questions you ask and hear from the engaging attorney?

Steve Reese: The first thing I want to do is to see the pleadings. I want to see what the case is about, and if I must sign an NDA, that’s fine. I want to make sure that I am convicted, and that I’m on the right side of it. I’ve been approached numerous times where I’ve said, “I disagree with you. I can’t get up and testify on your behalf if I don’t agree with your side of the equation.” The first thing is I vet the case itself and make sure that- I’m not saying I’m right. I’m saying I want to know which side they represent. Plaintiff. Defendant. However, it shakes out. That’s one of the first things I learned. The other thing I learned early on was that I wasn’t charging enough.

Noah Bolmer: You talked about when you are vetting them and need to read some pleadings; you must learn more about the case. Maybe signing an NDA. Is that a billable occurrence or the cost of doing business?

Steve Reese: No, that’s the cost of doing business. Anytime I’m marketing or subjecting my staff to review something upfront, we tend not to charge for that.

Noah Bolmer: Are there specific terms in your contracts that you use to protect yourself and make sure that you are going to be paid, for example. I’ve had many expert witnesses tell me that sometimes they’re engaged just to scare off the other party because they’re a big deal in their area. Then they end up not making much money. Do you have a non-refundable retainer, hourly rates, or project rates? What’s your billing situation?

Steve Reese: We normally do hourly. We will put in a late payment clause. The other thing I have learned over the years is that it’s best to engage directly with the client instead of the attorney. If you engage with the attorney, they’ll wait to get paid from the client before they pay you and no offense, but many attorneys aren’t quick to write a check. We’ve learned that for us it’s best to engage directly with the client in the lawsuit.

Noah Bolmer: Is that fair? You’re not the first expert who’s told me that. If your contract is with the attorney- the attorney is typically the one who’s contractually engaging you. Is it fair for them to wait to pay you until the client has paid them?

Steve Reese: It’s fair if it’s a reasonable amount of time. [When] you get to ninety days or longer, we get nervous, and we’ll contact the client directly. It’s infrequent and it’s happened, but it’s not the main point of negotiations. It’s just something to be aware of.

Noah Bolmer: As somebody who’s been doing this for a long time, what are some of the changes that you’ve seen in expert witnessing throughout the years? Are more engagements moving towards settlement? Has technology changed the way that you go about doing any aspect of expert witnessing? What are some of the changes that you’ve seen over the decades that you’ve been at it?

Steve Reese: That’s a great question. First, it’s been 25 years since I’ve testified in a courtroom.

Noah Bolmer: Wow.

Steve Reese: I would say 95% of the ones we’ve done in the last 20 years have settled. Technology has changed. We do everything exclusively through a ShareFile or Dropbox. E-mail, fax, carrier pigeon, and Pony Express have gone by the wayside. Trust me, I’m not the one to set up ShareFile, that’s for sure.

Noah Bolmer: Do you find there’s a difference in the way you present yourself on a camera using telepresence versus being there in person? Is it more difficult to connect with a judge, jury, or attorney when you’re doing so in front of a camera versus a screen?

Steve Reese: Absolutely. My business has been built on face to face in the old school of shaking hands and looking someone in the eye. It’s different engaging like this but it’s doable and we conduct so much of our business with Zoom or Teams. You work around it and accomplish the same thing. It’s not the same thing, but it’s the world we live in.

Noah Bolmer: Do you have any tips, any specific things like make sure you’re looking into the camera for eye contact? Do you change the way that you dress or make sure you’re not fidgeting? What are some of the things that you do to maintain a professional demeanor on telepresence?

Steve Reese: You notice I have a cheap T-shirt on.

Noah Bolmer: This is audio, so that’s all right. I could have told everyone you were in a suit.

Steve Reese: It’s changed even though I do believe in a professional presence in my staff. I let them know that. I’m not the world’s best at it, but I think it’s more relevant when it comes to newer clients and new engagements. Once people get to know you, whether you have a beard or not, or whether you have a suit on or not. Those have become the points. I worked in the corporate world for Texaco and we wore a suit and tie. In certain industries that is appropriate, and in other ones it’s a moot point. We do so much now, virtually, that’s a tough question for sure.

Noah Bolmer: Do you find that there are some venues that are more casual than others, or even judges that are more casual than others? How do you adapt to those situations and still get your point across when it’s either casual or formal.

Steve Reese: In my experience, when I’ve been in the courtroom with regard to formality, what I key in on is the judge’s knowledge because I’ve had some judges, to be frank, that had absolutely no clue on the subject matter. They were there to make a decision; however, they didn’t understand oil, gas, or whatever we were talking about. One of the things I look for is that. That’s how I present myself. If I have to do my Gas 101 course in court, which I’ve done before, I may have to go to that level. That’s fine. Not everybody’s an expert on everything. More so than appearance, acumen is something that I look for,

Noah Bolmer: How do you convey some of these complex engineering topics to lay persons in a way that you’re not talking down to them, but they’re going to absorb. For instance, do you like to use demonstratives, images, videos, and things like that?

Steve Reese: I’ve taught my seminars to probably over 10,000 professionals over the years and as long as I have a whiteboard and a flip chart, I can get my message across because the business at its core is not that complicated. To a heart surgeon, that’s not complicated either. You just have to read the room like you do with your radio audience or anything else. You have to read the room and understand where you should start. One thing I learned early on in my career is if you’re a subject matter expert when you get in the room, you know more than 95% of the people in the room, including the judge, attorney, counsel, and other experts. You have to be able to do that in a non-condescending manner.

Noah Bolmer: You have a broad expertise that touches many interrelated areas, but it’s broad. How do you not only become an expert, but how do you remain an expert in your field? How do you stay abreast and on top of everything such that people are still going to call you because you understand not just the area but the current goings on in your field.

Steve Reese: Partly through my staff and partly through social media. I don’t do a lot of social media except for LinkedIn, and that’s probably where you found me. I have about 40 or 50,000 followers and I have a great media director that writes my posts for me. She scours everything every day and we post 3 or 4 times a week. Obviously, I do not pay any attention to the legacy media. The mainstream media is obviously not trustworthy anymore. I listen to podcasts and I’m on podcasts. As you grow and mature, you have to take everything in and have to vet it for yourself. You can’t have someone else telling you who to believe. The only thing that does that is the color of our beards. It [has] to come through experience.

Noah Bolmer: Let’s talk about- before you had mentioned working directly for clients. That’s interesting to me. Can you talk about what is it like being engaged by a client? We’re talking about the end client obviously versus working with the attorney. For instance, when you are communicating with the end client does the attorney or an attorney always have to be present or monitoring what you’re saying for discovery?

Steve Reese: Once something is filed and it’s something that they don’t like unless we are all together. What’s interesting is [many] of the expert engagements that we end up on start [many] times as a consulting engagement. We’ve done an engagement helping them with an audit, marketing, or something and ran into a nefarious character on the other side, and it goes into litigation. Then things change dramatically. You want to stay away from putting anything in writing that the attorney doesn’t approve of. If you’re going to talk to someone, you need to do it on the telephone. Certain corporate entities record their phone calls. You have to have some discernment in what you say. I’ve been in some engagements where some of the expert’s phone calls have been played in court, and I’ll say it was embarrassing for them.

Noah Bolmer: When an engagement moves from being a consulting job to a courtroom engagement or an expert witness engagement, is there a transfer process? Are there things that you have to do to get your ducks in a row to prepare yourself for that? Does your work product- prior to becoming an expert witness engagement is that work product discoverable by the other side or does it start once you’re engaged as an expert witness?

Steve Reese: It’s all discoverable in my experience. Obviously, your focus changes and your work product changes because now anything that you’re providing, reports you’re writing, or whatever are for sure going to be out in the stratosphere. Usually, the rate will go up if we’re going into battle. My fees are going to go up. There is a transition for sure and we’ll usually go ahead and have that potential transition written into our base consulting agreements.

Noah Bolmer: Are there any red flags that you look for along the way? You talked a bit about your vetting process when you first start an engagement, but sometimes things change during an engagement. What are the things you have to watch out for during an engagement when you can tell that it’s not going the way you want it to go?

Steve Reese: Have you been sitting in my office watching me? Is that where that question? The biggest red flag is late pay from a client. Another red flag are entities and individuals that start promising deadlines that aren’t kept and continue to promise that tomorrow thing and we’ve got a couple of those now. It’s a hard sell because if it’s a new customer, you don’t know them. It’s through experience. After a while I begin- I can be skeptical. A guy says, “We’re going to change the world. We’re going to drill a million wells.” When they are 6 months into it and they’re having trouble paying your $2,500, then you know something is up. Usually late pay and things of that nature can clue you in quickly.

Noah Bolmer: Speaking of scheduling, do you get [many] last minute rush things? I need an expert witness report in three days. Help. If so, do you bill differently for those things?

Steve Reese: I don’t know if I bill differently, but that’s basically the MO of most attorneys. We’re working on a huge report right now. We thought we had all summer. It’s now due in 31 days. We’ll make it but “hurry up and wait” is one of their favorite terms.

Noah Bolmer: Let’s talk more generally. How do you get off on the right foot in a new engagement? What are the things expert witnesses and attorneys should be doing to make sure that it’s a successful, mutually productive expert witness engagement.

Steve Reese: It’s all about communication. It’s all about being honest and communicating what you know and you don’t know. I’m never going to go into an engagement or a lawsuit saying, “We’re experts in areas A, B and C” when it’s B & D. The same for the attorney aspect. We’ve been fortunate that almost all the attorneys we’ve worked with have acknowledged and acquiesced to the fact that they didn’t know a lot about what we were going to be discussing in detail. They understand the legal machinations and how to get to an end result. We’ve had some good engagements where at the end of the day it’s all about communication between ourselves and the law firm.

Noah Bolmer: Do you have any pre deposition or pretrial routines that get you in the right headspace or get you ready? I have experts that say they like to drink a ton of coffee or they don’t eat anything until after. Do you have any pre-deposition and pre-trial routines that get you ready to go?

Steve Reese: Pray. Seriously, I pray that the Lord shows me that I will be honest and tell the truth. It’s interesting so many times if you get on the stand, the opposing attorney’s job is to call you everything in the book. I have a couple of engineers who work for me that love that. They’re like, “I want to get up there.” I’m like, “Go for it.” You’ve just really- The key to getting ready is knowing your material. Just like presenting. It’s a lot like training and seminars. If you know your material, know what the case is about, and know your side. If you’re prepared, things will go a lot smoother.

Noah Bolmer: Are there any cases that you can talk about? You don’t have to get into any specifics because of NDA’s and whatnot. Are there any cases that either inform the way that you go about expert witnessing, reinforce or change something about the way you go about expert witnessing in general?

Steve Reese: I think what- the main thing I did learn early on was to literally understand the acumen, or lack thereof of the legal counsel. There were a couple of large class actions in Oklahoma [from] 20 to 30 years ago about oil and gas producers being able to charge certain fees to royalty owners. They went all the way to the Oklahoma Supreme Court. We’ve done them in Oklahoma and Texas. In one of those the key was- We figured it out too late was that counsel had absolutely no understanding of how those deals are transacted. If that happens, you’re in trouble. Some of those early cases in the late nineties taught me a good lesson.

Noah Bolmer: Before we wrap up, do you have any last advice for expert witnesses, in particular newer expert witnesses or attorneys working with expert witnesses?

Steve Reese: I’ll reiterate that the best thing to do is have an understanding of each other’s knowledge and how far that goes or doesn’t go. Also be able to bifurcate the different duties, whether it’s accounting. Whether it’s commercial contracts. Whether it’s engineering. Our business has about 5 or 6 different components like that, and I think the attorneys and [many] of these experts need to realize that no one knows it all. As long as that’s understood and you know what your niche is, and you can convey that to counsel that makes things a lot easier.

Noah Bolmer: Sage advice, Mr. Reese. Thank you for joining me today.

Steve Reese: Thanks, Noah. Nice to meet you.

Noah Bolmer: You too, and thank you, as always to our listeners for joining us for another edition of Engaging Experts. Cheers.

Steve Reese, CEO of Reese Energy Consulting

Steve Reese, is the CEO of Reese Energy Consulting, a full-service consulting firm serving the energy sector, and Reese Energy Training. He is an expert in natural gas contracts, energy marketing, sales contracts, and more. Mr. Reese holds a degree in Business Administration from the University of Central Oklahoma.