In this episode… 

Obtaining and maintaining certifications is the key to credibility with engaging attorneys, according to our guests. In trades like locksmithing, certifications take the place of academic credentials, and quickly communicate your wheelhouse, and your commitment to staying current in your field. 

Check out the entire episode for our discussion on billing for different activities, going to settlement, and developing conclusions in expert reports. 

 

Note: Transcript has been lightly edited for clarity 

Host: Noah Bolmer, Round Table Group 

Guest: Tom Demont, President of Technical Services, Inc. 

Guest: Mark Stuart, President of Associated Lock Forensics 

Noah Bolmer: Welcome to Engaging Experts. I’m your host, Noah Bolmer, and today I’m excited to welcome a pair of guests. Tom Demont is the President of Technical Services, Inc. And a 50-year veteran of locksmithing and security profession. He has written for numerous trade publications and is an experienced expert witness. Mr. Demont, thank you for joining me here today. Welcome to the show. 

Tom Demont: Thank you. It’s good to be here with you, Noah. 

Noah Bolmer: Mark Stuart is the President of Associated Lock Forensics, which is a full-service expert consulting firm and Emerald Coast Fire Door Inspections, and he’s a longtime locksmith as well. Mr. Stuart holds a JD from Woodrow Wilson College of Law. Mr. Stuart, welcome to the show. 

Mark Stuart: Thank you. Appreciate it, Noah. 

Noah Bolmer: You are both career expert locksmiths. I have to ask, how did you get into expert witnessing? 

Tom Demont: Mine started in the Navy. I spent 10 years in the US Navy, as a locksmith and physical security expert. I was also stationed with the Naval Intelligence Service (NIS) as an expert in the lock field. 

Noah Bolmer: Were you getting calls from attorneys to be an expert on cases or how did you first get your first engagement as an expert witness? 

Tom Demont: Mine went all the way back to the mid-1970s after I got discharged from the Navy. I was running a lock company and an attorney who I had worked with when I was with NIS called me. He asked me if I would fly to New York and review a lock situation for him for a case. He said that I’d be well compensated for the trip, and I pointed out to him that I was very busy, and I didn’t have time to fool around. He said it’d be worth my while, so I flew to New York for that case. 

Noah Bolmer: And you’ve been doing it ever since.  

Tom Demont: Ever since, yes. Word of mouth gets around. I didn’t advertise then, and I didn’t start advertising until I retired when I was 65. When I retired, I took it on as a full-time retirement career and I’ve been doing it now for 15 years full time. 

Noah Bolmer: Mr. Stuart. 

Mark Stuart: It was by accident. Ten years ago, I needed a key for my Saturn, and I Googled how to take the ignition out of the steering wheel. I took it down to a locksmith shop to see if I could have a key made, and I was enamored by the locksmith shop. I thought, “I’m about to retire and man, this is good stuff. I’d like to learn this.” I tried to talk to the owner about becoming a locksmith. To be perfectly frank, he didn’t want to hire me. He said I was too old. I said, “Okay.” Then, I became his competitor because he’ll tell you that’s the biggest mistake he ever made because I grew, and I’m now the dominant person in the market. Nevertheless, after I went to school, I learned all I could from a guy named Steve Young, who’s recently passed away. He was a well-known auto locksmith. I kept taking classes online and wherever I could get them. I went to get certified in Alabama and took four more classes for that certification. If there was a class, I was going to attend. I have a hunger and knowledge for locksmithing, so I kept growing, my business kept growing, and our reputation kept growing. It got to the point where it was more than I could handle, so, I’ve had to hire some people. That’s how I got into it and the locksmith business led to the fire door business. The fire door business lent itself to the forensic business. Of all three, I like forensic locksmithing the best because I can put all my skills, discovery and learning together. I absolutely love it. I do what I do because I love it, not because I want the money necessarily. Although you’re going to need to pay. I love the work, and that’s what makes a person successful. 

Noah Bolmer: What is forensic locksmithing?  

Tom Demont: That’s interesting. The International Association of Forensic Locksmiths was founded in 2000 by two retired forensic investigators. One with the Department of the Army and the other with the Montgomery County Police Department in Maryland. Both founded the association, and I was lucky enough to be a board member when we put it together in 2000. Then, my membership numbers were 12 and we now have more than three thousand members of that association. Many people that joined were members of Associated Lock Forensics, and our goal is to help them find work with attorneys as expert witnesses. 

Noah Bolmer: What is an engagement like for a forensic locksmith? What are the matters you get brought in for? 

Tom Demont: We are brought in for everything. I’ve done cases that involve doors, frames and hardware for amputations and lacerations where the hardware or the door failed. As an expert witness in those areas, you must be an expert in building and fire codes for each state. You must be an expert on all the hardware so that when you do your site visit, you can write your report based on your knowledge of how this door was installed. Was it done to code? In many cases we find code violations, and it was what caused the incident. Other cases I’ve taken are patent violations. I’ve done patent cases where one patent inventor was suing another one and I’ve got to review the patent or the information between both to determine if there was a patent violation. I’ve worked for Master Padlock and other companies to do those, but we get a wide variety of cases in safes and vaults. We do many of those. I had a case where the locksmith that opened the safe ended up burning up three million dollars’ worth of opals. He swears that the drill bit set a fire inside and I was able to prove with a site visit that there was slag in the safe. You can’t get slag unless you’re burning. I collected the slag to send off for analysis. That case like most of our cases, when we write our reports, they settle out of court. We’re very thorough and we’re knowledgeable in that one area that we zero in on. Recently, I brought Mark in on a case that involved an automatic door. I’m knowledgeable with door frames and hardware, but I’m not an expert in automatic doors. Mark is an expert in automatic doors, and he’s a certified AAADM technician. Mark flew in, did the site visit and wrote the report, and another case settled out of court based on the reports we wrote. 

Noah Bolmer: That’s an interesting topic. You talked about bringing Mr. Stuart in when you were brought in. Is he acting as a subcontractor to you or is he working as part of the engagement for the attorney? 

Tom Demont: I’ll bring him in as a consultant who works for me. The attorney that hired me still deals directly with me and then Mark writes the report. It goes directly to the attorney. Everything is handled through my office. What we hope to set up with the association is that the association will get involved and be the middleman for the attorneys or whoever is hiring us. I have end users that hire us because they feel they were ripped off. They wanted a forensic investigation and were all gung-ho until we tell them the price, then they tend to cool off a bit.  

Noah Bolmer: You talked about having to know hardware, door frames, automatic doors, and different types of locks. Even though locksmithing in general might be a niche it does sound like a broad topic. Mr. Stuart, how do you stay on top of everything and remain an expert in your field? 

Mark Stuart: One thing I do is to stay certified. I read everything that comes out every time the code changes. I recently got recertified with AAADM, and they just changed one of the codes. I have to take the test every year but it’s important to stay up on it. The nice thing about what we do is that we are independent. Most of your automatic door accidents, and I forgot what the number was, but it’s at least five or six hundred a year across the country, it’s usually the manufacturer’s expert that comes to court for the attorney to try to defend the manufacturer or someone, or so we are independent. In my view, that’s why you can make the case for hiring a forensic investigative locksmith first before you hire an attorney because what we do is look for causation. He’s looking for money and liability. When he looks at the case, he looks to see what he can get out of it financially for his client. We’re not advocates. We’re scientific investigators. We won’t know what happened. Technically, if you did the investigation first, then they would know how many parties are involved and can divide up the liability. What we do encourages settlement versus going to court, which is a key thing. I would think that insurance companies would say, “Let’s do the investigation first.” We get it from the attorneys first. We do a thorough job when we give our report because we know what they don’t know.  

Many times, they’ll try to call them try to call and pick my brain a little and I find the more I talk the worse it gets. I should just tell them very little. They want to save money. They came for their client. Instead of letting your clients spend the money to hire you to take the case, why don’t you tell them what the cost is to get an independent investigator and get the facts? Then you take the case, and you’re on good ground as to how you want to do this. That’s how it works for me. I love doing it and I get calls all the time from a wrongful death action to someone getting knocked down by a door. My job is to separate it out and not all investigators are equal or created equal.  

On the last case that I did it was an architect/forensic expert that did a report and that’s when Tom brought me in. They wanted to know what my opinion was. I read [their] expert’s report and said, “It sounds okay, but I would do certain things. I recommend this.” They decided “Why don’t you do your own independent report?” Well, I did and came to find out, my independent report revealed some things that the architect/forensic expert did not see because my methodology is reenacting it. He missed the fact the accident was at night. He thought he’d do the investigation in the daytime. The lighting was key to why things happened the way that, but he wouldn’t have known that because he didn’t reenact it to see where the lighting was a problem. What I’m saying is being thorough, and not everybody is. I love being thorough. I like that- matter of fact, I got that the attorney was helping us, to help me, with the case. He met me at the store and played the customer pushing the cart while I filmed it. He loved it. I educated the person I was working for, and he enjoyed it. Then he goes, “I didn’t know that.” You can teach them terms and what things mean. I like to engage my clients. People can tell when you enjoy what you do. You don’t leave any stone unturned. That’s why every case, to be properly treated, needs a field investigation. You can only read so much and see so much. When you’re there, and enact it, you get a better picture. Then you may see things that you wouldn’t have seen. 

Noah Bolmer: Let’s talk about those phone calls. What are the sorts of questions that you want to hear from the engaging attorney and what are some of the questions that you ask to make sure that you are the correct expert witness for any particular matter? 

Mark Stuart: They need to tell me enough about the case for me to understand whether or not I want to take it. Then after I hear from them, I’m going to say, “Do you want me to do a site investigation? If they think it’s free, well then, I have to tell them I’m not interested. If they’e willing to pay, then I am. They sometimes try to figure out causation by watching a video, what they know, or they looked up a code or something. They don’t know. There are a lot of elements that come into an accident. There’s the human element. There’s the mechanical element. There’s the environmental element. There are code questions. Like Tom said, you need to know all the codes. All these things play into who’s at fault and when we do investigation. We lay it out and go, “You guys fight over who’s liable, but basically everybody is.” 

Noah Bolmer: Mr. Demont, are there any red flags that you look for in some of those initial calls? 

Tom Demont: [As] Mark said, they have to give me a synopsis of the case and that’s free. I’m happy to listen to them to determine if it’s a case that I can help them with or maybe I can refer them to somebody else. But if the case really isn’t a case, I flat out tell them, “You don’t have a case and you’re wasting your time and my time.” I won’t take the case unless I feel that I could contribute to it and Mark feels the same way. We’re not going to refer them to one of our consultants or anybody else to take the case. I had one case, an armature plate for electromagnetic lock glued to a herculite door glass- hit a lady in the head. Now this is normally a case I would take, but I looked at the insurance investigators photographs and I could see that there were bubbles in the glue and the manufacturer clearly states that you have to clamp it on for 24 hours to get the bubbles out of the glue so it’s a good adhesive for glass. Well, when I spotted that, I told them right then that they just needed to get a chemical engineer to assess the glue to see the holding force, and that it wasn’t a case for me. I basically gave it away and I do stuff like that. I’m busy. I have six or seven open cases right now. They don’t demand my attention all the time, but when a case is ready to go to trial, you’re working 7 [days a week], 24 [hours a day], to get everything in a row and ready for presentation. Over the last fifteen years, I have done over a hundred cases, went to court once, and been deposed four times. 

Noah Bolmer: You’re serious when you say that most of these go to settlement. As an expert witness, is it better? Do you prefer for your cases to move to settlement and then you can move on with the next case? Or do you like to get a little bit of courtroom time? 

Tom Demont: No, it doesn’t matter to me. I’m fine with it. As an expert witness, I have to hang on to all my evidence that until that case is closed, and once I get word the case is closed, I usually will contact the attorney and say, “Do you want my files, or do you want me to destroy them? Give me a written Information on that.” Then they get destroyed. They’re gone, so you can’t come back later on that. It doesn’t matter to me which way it goes. I have to think that [it was] because of my report and this seriousness of the report that pushed it to settle. Because, you know yourself, the case is the battle of the expert witnesses. Who’s the most believable and makes the most sense. When it comes to door lock hardware, I believe that we’re the best. 

Noah Bolmer: Do either of you write a significant number of rebuttal reports, speaking of other expert witnesses on the other side of the table? 

Tom Demont: I’ve done that a lot in patent cases because their expert will send it to me. I’ll [write my] rebuttal and send it back. [It will go] back and forth between the attorneys because they don’t want to go to court. They want to settle. As far as other cases, most amputations are not all settled out of court because once you have a building code violation where they’re using the wrong hardware, that’s a slam dunk for the attorney. 

Noah Bolmer: Both of you have been at this for a significant amount of time. Have you noticed any changes over the years in the way that expert witnesses are treated or that you go about doing depositions? Have we moved towards settlement in general over the past several decades? What are the changes that you’ve witnessed and experienced over the years? 

Tom Demont: The main thing is that if you go back to the COVID years more, more cases got settled than any other time, mainly because they’re they didn’t want you in court. Even depositions were done that way. The only time I did Zoom depositions was during COVID. The thing that I notice today is that the cases get settled quicker than in the past. People just don’t want [cases] to be dragged out for a long period of time. All I know is that Mark and I are busy. We have cases coming in and the forensic field is huge. I mean, there’s automotive stuff, and neither of us does automotive forensics. That’s a specialty of its own. There are special certifications for that. We cover the whole spectrum as far as the association does. The consultants that are signed up with us cover those different areas. 

Noah Bolmer: Let’s move to some general topics. Mr. Stuart what are the important factors that you look for that you have tried to cultivate to get off on the right foot and have a good productive relationship with the engaging attorney? [What would] you recommend other expert witnesses try and look out for and cultivate? 

Mark Stuart: I think in general conversation, they learn that you respect them. You tell me what your credentials are. The attorney that I worked with last, I really liked the guy, and I think he liked me. Because he was an attorney, he knew my credentials and knew I would share anything he wanted me to share them with him. Whether we are experts or not, we talked the same language and we understood each other. Getting off on the right foot is not trying to be impressive but be factual. Talk like you know what you’re talking about. Ask them what they need to know. What’s the purpose and how things developed? You want to give your clients the most information that you can. I found that I like talking to them. I’m a talker. I like visiting the sites. Getting off on the right foot has to do with good public relations. I do it in everything I do, whether it be in the fire door business or not. I’m dealing with the Florida state attorney on interpretation on one of their codes. The guy is a young lawyer, and we found we had other things in common, so in terms of the declaratory judgment, I want to get that. It helps me. If I have to debate or argue with other people and authority about what the state law is, I go, “Here’s what the Attorney General says.” “Okay, that settles that.” Let’s move on to the next thing. If you want to make their job easier, they want to make yours easier. That’s all part of it. We’re partners in this. 

Being transparent and humble is important. I’m not trying to impress attorneys with big words. You got your J.D. We can use big words if we want to, but why? Let’s just get right down to it. The only time I would use a legal term that most people might not know is if I thought was important to the case. If you want to ask if there was certain evidence that may have or linear motion. You would say that to the attorney, but you wouldn’t to any other person. If this is something that we can’t talk about, shouldn’t bring up or whatever, let me know before I go in, so we both don’t look like we have egg on our face. That’s a question for an attorney, but generally I don’t talk in those terms. We’re like anybody else. Most people you’re going to be explaining things to are going to be lay people anyway.  

Noah Bolmer: That’s right. How about in your expert witness reports, how do you go about explaining fairly complex technical engineering topics to laypersons? What are some of the techniques you use to make sure that they understand the specifics of what’s going on and why, while not overwhelming them in like the minutia of engineering jargon. 

Mark Stuart: You have to make it simple. The same old philosophy. You keep it simple. How do you take a difficult concept or problem and make it simple? It’s a skill and I have a process for doing that. I’ll pull all the evidence together. I like to use graphics. I like to enact. I want pictures and then you explain to them with an example. People can learn things if you talk about it enough, explain it, and give enough of the visual. In my report, I’ll pull all the evidence together. I’ll develop a scientific conclusion. Then, I’ll talk about the method I used. Then when you get ready to talk about what you think happened, your opinion, you need to talk about the degree of certainty. Be careful. This is probably called this. That calls that, and then I write a report. My report, as Tom said, needs to be thorough because it can go to court. I have my photos, my sketches, and lastly, I give my opinion. You fully support it and you should never talk about something you don’t know what you’re talking about. I just happen to think that most things can be explained if you work at it. That’s part of the teacher aspect of investigating. How [well] can you teach the student what you’re trying to get them to see? That’s a skill, too. Not everybody’s that way. If you’re an expert talking over people’s heads, let me have a newspaper and take a nap. When you get done talking about the tax code, I’m happy for you. For both of that you know that much. For me, it does absolutely nothing. I’m looking after my client. You want your client to understand, and everybody understands there’s a camaraderie there. 

Noah Bolmer: Let’s talk about preparation. I know [many] or most of these cases go to settlement, but I’ve heard from [many] expert witnesses that it’s best to prepare like it’s going to go to trial in case it does go. What preparation techniques do you like to use on the off chance that it does go into trial? Do you do mock cross examinations? Do you on the day before cram everything that you’ve read? What are your preparation techniques to get ready for a potentially difficult deposition or trial? 

Tom Demont: Every report I write is based on the fact that I will be going to court with it. Therefore, I take the complaint, and I answer the questions in my report. By the time I get to the summation of that report, it’s clear which way I’m going and what the evidence that I presented is going to state. Sometimes the attorneys don’t like the report because it doesn’t state what they want. But you know yourself, a good written report is what the attorney wants so they can make the determination on whether they go to court, or they settle. Our job is not to give them what they want, but our job is to examine the case. 

Mark Stuart: That’s right.  

Tom Demont: Give them the best report using our knowledge of whatever it is that’s involved in that case and outlining it for them. 

Noah Bolmer: You indicated earlier that you are quite busy. Are there any techniques that you use to keep your schedule together? How do you manage so many cases, consulting jobs and your locksmithing work? How do you keep everything organized and together? Do you use any specific software to keep it all in your head? How do you stay organized? 

Tom Demont: When I say that I’m busy, I run a manufacturing company, and I have people working for me. They do the bulk of the work. As far as the cases are concerned, I have them cataloged. When I take on a new case is when I’m the busiest. Most of the big-name cases you heard of in the US, if they used a forensic lock expert, I may have been involved with it. 

Noah Bolmer: One more topic that I’d like to [discuss] is billing. Do you use any particular billing terms? Do you take a retainer at the beginning? Do you use a project rate? Do you have a separate rate for depositions? How do you organize your billing?  

Tom Demont: That’s outlined at the beginning. Once we come to an agreement with the attorney that they’re going to hire us, we send them our rate sheet, and our CV as well. Usually, they have the CV way ahead of time, but we send them our fee schedule. We don’t take a retainer unless we have to do a site visit because there are a lot of out-of-pocket expenses with a site visit, but they do agree to our hourly rate. [In our fee schedule] it states that depositions are billed half day rates unless they go a whole day. Court cases are a minimum of three days. [It may be] settled in one day but you’re getting billed for three plus expenses. All that’s covered up ahead of time so there are no surprises. I’ve had them call me and say, “Get ready, we may be going to court next week on Tuesday. Can you be here?” I say, “I could be there, but you got to let me know at least a day ahead of time because I got to jump on a flight to get there.” Then, you know how that goes at the last minute. It settles when they know you’re serious about going to court. I have no problems going to court. That doesn’t bother me. I’ve testified many, many times when I was with the military, so I don’t have a problem testifying. 

Noah Bolmer: Do you have a different rate for travel? 

Tom Demont: It’s half of my hourly rate for travel time. You can be stuck in an airport nowadays for six hours. If it’s close enough, I’ll drive.  I’ve never had an issue with anybody having any problems with it. Mark, how about you? 

Mark Stuart: It’s the same. Attorneys know what they charge, so when they hear what we charge, I’ve never heard one saying, “That’s more than I charge.”  

Tom Demont: I’ve never heard that either. 

Mark Stuart: I’ll be happy to say, “What is it you charge? Maybe I need to increase my rate. What is that?” I view my time and what I do as important as theirs. If they have that mutual respect and they want what you want, they want to pay you for what you need. They’re not going to have a problem with that. They understand. They can’t afford to sit around all the time and not get paid. Time is money, and we’re businessmen as well. I have two other businesses besides the forensic business. That’s why I’m not going to waste my time on stuff that doesn’t make me any money or because someone doesn’t care. That’s why I have three businesses. I know how to manage my time, prioritize it, spread it out, and find out how to make money for me. 

Noah Bolmer: You mentioned before the show, Mr. Demont, that you had worked with Round Table Group in the past. In general, do you find expert witness referral agencies to be a useful tool? 

Tom Demont: Absolutely, because they’re drawing from a certain number of attorneys. That pool that uses them regularly nationwide. I’ve been with them for about 6 years, and they’ll refer cases. There are other groups that refer also. Just because they refer a case doesn’t mean we’re going to take it. I review them. If I don’t think I’m a good fit for it, I refer them to somebody else. 

Noah Bolmer: Before we wrap up, do you have any last advice for newer expert witnesses or even attorneys working with expert witnesses? We’ll start with you, Mr. Stuart.  

Mark Stuart: Noah, I would say understand what we do is different from what they do. They’re advocates. We’re investigators. We’re looking for causation. We’re not looking to prove a cause for them. We’re looking at what the evidence is scientifically. Our mandate is to be thorough and give the big picture. Some attorneys will call, and they’ll say, “I got a wrongful death action.” I’m thinking, “Oh boy, I know that’s going to be a big dollar one” but then I can tell sometimes they don’t need a forensic investigation. I’ll tell them in certain situations, “This is a little bit different.” I would say that attorneys don’t understand the value sometimes that we bring. To me, if I were an attorney and- assume I could be an attorney, the first bus stop is do an investigation. Get your facts and causation. Then decide what to do. Your client should be able to pay for that. That’s why if it’s an under $50,000 case, many of them don’t need to. They’re not going to pay for a forensic investigator. But if it’s a big dollar one, then it’s worth it to get the facts and have your client pay that. That’s the difference. Not every case is going to need an investigator because it may be so minor. I had a case in New York where someone had an electronic lock and they wanted to know if it was defective. A lady had someone go into her apartment and abuse her. And I said, “I bet you’ve already called the police.” They said, “Yeah.” I said, “You probably already contaminated my evidence if I have to do a field investigation. Do you think this rises to the level where you want to pay for me to come up there?” They thought about it, and said, “No, I don’t think so.” You need to ask yourself what it’s worth in terms of what you’re after. Not every case will necessarily need a field investigation if it’s too small of a matter. 

Noah Bolmer: Mr. Demont, any advice? 

Tom Demont: When you’re interviewing a forensic investigator, the first thing you want to ask him is how many credentials do you carry? I personally carry thirteen and I have to get recertified every three years on all those credentials. The reason is that there are many knowledgeable lock people out there. There are door people and hardware people but are they investigators? Do they have the knowledge to be able to do the investigation, and write the report so that it makes sense as to the causation? People will say, “I remember you, and fifty years ago you didn’t have all those credentials.” Then, I say, “I wasn’t an investigator full time, but I took the time to get the credentials because it adds to my reliability as an expert witness. Somebody is checking up on me and that I’m just not hanging a shingle out there and saying, ‘I’m a certified master locksmith.’ I took the exam in 1985, and nobody has checked it since then.” It doesn’t work like that with forensic locksmithing. If you’re a certified forensic locksmith, you have to recertify every three years. 

Noah Bolmer: Mr. Demont, thank you for joining me. 

Tom Demont: It was my pleasure. Mark and I are always available if you want to do a follow-up. We’ll be happy to work with you. 

Noah Bolmer: Mr. Stuart, thank you for joining me. 

Mark Stuart: It’s been my pleasure, Noah. 

Tom Demont: Do I have to call him Mr. Stuart now?  

Mark Stuart: I don’t think so! 

Noah Bolmer: It’s actually the law. I’m sorry. 

Mark Stuart: It’s preferred over other adjectives. 

Tom Demont: It was nice talking with you, Noah.  

Noah Bolmer: And thank you as always to our listeners for joining us for another episode of Engaging Experts. 

Tom Demont, President of Technical Services, Inc., and Mark Stuart, President of Associated Lock Forensics

Mr. Tom Demont is the President of Technical Services, Inc., and a 50-year veteran of the locksmithing and security professions. He has written for numerous trade publications and is an experienced expert witness.   Mr. Mark Stuart is the President of Associated Lock Forensics, a full-service expert witness consulting firm; and Emerald Coast Fire Door Inspections. He is a locksmith as well and holds a JD from Woodrow Wilson College of Law.