In this episode . . . 

When medical technology and legal expertise intersect, Dr. Linda van Roosmalen stands at that fascinating crossroads. Our conversation dives deep into her journey from university research lab to courtroom expert witness in the specialized field of wheelchair transportation safety.

Dr. van Roosmalen pulls back the curtain on the ethical backbone of expert witnessing. She recounts refusing to alter her professional opinion despite attorney pressure, explaining why integrity isn’t just morally right—it’s professionally essential. “At all costs, you have to be extremely honest in your opinions,” she insists, noting how past statements can return in future cases, making consistency crucial for credibility.

The practical challenges of balancing expert work alongside a full-time career emerge as we explore her methodical approach to case management. Using specialized software to track hours across multiple cases that often span years, she maintains strict separation between her primary field and expert witness specialty to avoid conflicts of interest. Her flexibility—taking calls after hours or on weekends—reveals how modern professionals can successfully maintain dual careers.

Want to learn how expert witnesses can strengthen your case? Contact Round Table Group today and discover why finding the right expertise makes all the difference in complex litigation.

Note: Transcript has been lightly edited for clarity 

Host: Noah Bolmer, Round Table Group 

Guest: Dr. Linda van Roosmalen, Lead Usability Designer for Philips and Principal at LINC Design

Noah Bolmer: Welcome to Engaging Experts. I’m your host, Noah Balmer, and today I’m excited to welcome Dr. Linda van Roosmalen to the show. Dr. van Roosmalen is the Lead Usability Designer for Philips and Principal at LINC Design. She is an expert in medical device safety and usability. Dr. van Roosmalen holds a PhD in rehabilitation science and technology from the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. van Roosmalen, thank you so much for joining me here today on Engaging Experts.

Linda van Roosmalen: Thank you.

Noah Bolmer: Of course, let’s jump into it. So, you have decades of experience in medical devices, but how did you first become involved in expert witnessing?

Linda van Roosmalen: Well, that’s an interesting story. I actually started my first case while being mentored at the University of Pittsburgh. First case while being mentored at the University of Pittsburgh, so that was oh, I’m dating myself back in 1998 or so 1999. I was working at the time in the Wheelchair Transportation Safety Lab at the University of Pittsburgh and my mentor asked me if I was interested in helping him with a case. That was my first introduction and it’s the same expertise as I’m currently working on.

Noah Bolmer: How was that first phone call? Did you even know that expert witnessing was a thing at that point? Did it kind of hit you out of the blue? Or is it something that you were ready for?

Linda van Roosmalen: I wasn’t really aware that it was a profession or something you could do. So, for me, I looked at it from a research perspective. It was kind of an interesting question. Somebody got hurt because of a wheelchair transportation issue, and I was asked to look into it from a design perspective. It was interesting. I could kind of apply my professional expertise into a real-life problem.

Noah Bolmer: So, as you know, you hadn’t done it. This call comes out of the blue. Tell me about those initial phone calls. What are the sorts of questions that engaging attorneys ask expert witnesses? And now that you’ve done this for a while, is there anything that you like to ask, or you like to make sure is the case before you accept an expert witness engagement?

Linda van Roosmalen: Compared to that first case that I took which was just an informal request from my mentor, the next couple of cases were interesting because I got another case, probably because I wrote a paper on wheelchair transportation. I got a call from a client. I didn’t think too much of it besides, “Oh yeah, sure I can help you with this case.” And then my other mentor said oh, you know what you should just take on this case, it will never go to trial. And then obviously my first case went to trial so it was very nerve wracking, but I can’t really remember that initial discussion with that attorney. But more recently, what is at the forefront of my questions when I talk to potential clients is what their timeline is. Is there a need for a local inspection of some sort? I usually get called about cases related to wheelchair incidents. They’re either in a paratransit vehicle, a large public bus or airline, or sometimes an environment somewhere where somebody got hurt, and it can be all over the country. So, for me, since expert witness is not my main profession, I do it kind of on the side. For me it’s important that I’m not traveling, like, from Pittsburgh to California next week because of a case. So, for me, timeline is important. The need for local inspection. Do they look for a consultation only? Do they look for an opinion report? Of course, what is the type of case that they need my services for? Is it a good fit for my expertise? That’s probably the most important one, to be honest. If I take on a case, I need to have a good feeling also that I’m on the right side of the case. Sometimes you’re—there’s always a right and a wrong side on a case, correct? So, you want to feel good that you’re on the side of the case that you can really support.

Noah Bolmer: Tell me about the calculus of that a little bit. How do you decide if the position of an engaging attorney is the quote unquote right side or the wrong side? Are you able to do that with the initial phone calls?

Linda van Roosmalen: I try to get to it, and I also try to get to the reason a little bit why an incident occurred, and in my head, I’m already thinking, “Okay, how could this have been prevented? Is it the fault of the person in the wheelchair, or is it the fault of somebody that was transporting this person in the wheelchair?” Sometimes I of course need more information, and I need to get more evidence through reading the incident reports and all. But usually by asking the right questions about what happened exactly in the incident, you can determine what might have happened.

Noah Bolmer: Sure, do you typically do a free initial phone call?

Linda van Roosmalen: Yes. And I get calls, either through referral agencies, probably 50/50, or somebody calls me out of the blue based on my website, or by Googling the words “wheelchair transport” or “restraint systems”, they find my name.

Noah Bolmer: You brought up expert witness referral agencies. Is that something that you found useful in your practice?

Linda van Roosmalen: Yes, it’s been very useful. I have been involved with a few of them over the years, probably also because my area of expertise is very narrow. There’s not many experts that focus on a person sitting in a wheelchair and driving out of their wheelchair or being transported and knowing everything about safety restraints and securement systems and occupant biomechanics. So, it’s a kind of a specialty and I probably also know all the other experts in this field. It’s a narrowly defined expertise.

Noah Bolmer: When you’re in a niche where you kind of know all of the other experts, do you frequently get into a situation where the other side of an engagement has hired someone you know?

Linda van Roosmalen: So, that has actually not happened that often. Maybe because of the fact, as I mentioned before, you always try to be on the good side. I tend to think that the experts I know are also on the good side. It has happened before that I was with one of my colleagues on the same case, but it’s very rare yeah.

Noah Bolmer: Sure, speaking of working with your colleagues on the same side. Trial teams can often include more than just you and the attorney. There can be other attorneys, paralegals, assistants, other expert witnesses. To what extent do you, as an expert witness, interact with the other members of the trial team besides the engaging attorney?

Linda van Roosmalen: It hasn’t not happened that frequent, I must say it’s very rare that I work with somebody. Usually there is someone—if I had somebody working with me, it might be that they have access to a certain test facility. I was working on a case involving a ramp surface and I had to travel to Michigan to work on this test scenario, including a ramp. So, I would work together with some of the other researchers on the case.

Noah Bolmer: Do you collaborate on an expert witness report with the other members of the team, or do you pretty much make the expert report whole cloth?

Linda van Roosmalen: I always write my own reports. I do not write anything together with someone else. That said, there are instances where some attorneys have the tendency to write their own document, and they ask an expert to write an affidavit with that they support what they wrote. So that’s kind of interesting. That’s luxury. You don’t have to write a report yourself. On the other hand, yeah, for 99% of the time I write my own reports and that’s then reviewed by the attorney. They might have some comments or requirement for clarification, but yeah, I usually write it myself.

Noah Bolmer: Have you written rebuttal reports where you’re primarily responding to the other side’s report?

Linda van Roosmalen: Yes, that’s sometimes the case. The case, besides doing injury type cases, I worked on an IP case where I had to work on a rebuttal report. I’ve also read reports that were written by opposing counsel or opposing experts that had some claims that were made that I disagreed with and then I had to write a rebuttal report. Yes, that happens, not very often, but it happens maybe in 10% of the cases.

Noah Bolmer: Do you find it to be either more difficult or easier to write rebuttal reports compared to initial reports?

Linda van Roosmalen: It’s always easy to critique other people’s work, right? But it’s tough. Some of the expert reports are written really well and they make a strong case, so then it requires some thinking of how to spin it, but if we talk about engineering and technology, it’s oftentimes very clear cut.

Noah Bolmer: You had mentioned that one of the primary concerns when you’re deciding whether or not to accept an engagement is whether or not the timeline meets yours as somebody who is still actively engaged in your field of expertise. You work in your field. How do you find the time to be an expert and how do you organize that time? Do you use any software or any other mechanisms to make sure that you have adequate time to give an expert witness engagement the time that it needs?

Linda van Roosmalen: Just to correct, I don’t work in my field of expertise currently. So, my expert witness work is really in the area of wheelchair transportation safety and I, on purpose, work in a field that has nothing to do with wheelchair transportation safety. I work in medical devices, yes, and I work in usability and safety of medical devices, but not on wheelchair technology. So, I try to really keep that separate so that there’s no conflict of interest between my job and the expert witness work. So, that said, I do use an interesting software called where I keep all my invoices straight and it’s called Zoho. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it, it’s. It’s really neat. It’s a very nice app that I can access on my phone and I keep track of all my hours, I keep track of all my my clients, if they paid me a retainer, how much is left on the retainer, how many hours are left, what date I did what on which case and how much time did I spend. All that level of detail is really useful to keep track, especially if you’re working on cases that have run times of sometimes years. I have some cases that take a year and a half to begin and end. You might have five cases. One of them is three weeks old, the other one is one and a half years and still dragging on and sometimes comes up. So yeah, it’s kind of juggling different cases and making sure you keep the communication straight. My cases have a tendency to not be very time consuming. I usually can get by with one retainer which is 10 hours of my time, but that might span across a year and a half. It’s a few hours here. Next month it’s another few hours, it really depends. But, again, I use Zoho and then of course, Outlook.

But the nice thing is that I work- [I’m] also flexible. So, [for] a lot of my clients I work after hours. I tell them, “Hey, you can call me after five anytime, you can also call me on the weekend.” I’m really flexible with my time and especially if customers or clients are in the California area, for them it’s three hours earlier so it easier for them to plan it in their afternoon. Being flexible is key.

Noah Bolmer: You bring up a retainer. How else do you like to structure your expert witness agreements, your contracts? You mentioned that you occasionally have site visits, and I imagine that that would involve some travel. How do you put travel expenses into your contracts? Do you have a separate billing rate? Is it your usual billing rate? Tell me a little bit about your billing agreement.

Linda van Roosmalen: I have a fee schedule that just has specific rates per hour. I sometimes have a non-refundable retainer for clients that don’t want a report. They say,” Hey, I just want a few hours of your time” so it’s kind of not fair to then charge them 10 hours of my time. So, but for the most part like probably 75% I charge a ten-hour retainer, and then I bill my hours as well as my travel time towards that.

As far as expenses, like travel expenses, usually there’s two ways, either the client books flights, sometimes that’s the case, but usually I would book my flight, and I get that reimbursed before I travel or while I travel. I mean, I’m flexible. I’ve had good experiences with attorneys paying for you getting over there at a split second. I usually prepay hotel and flights and dinner expenses or whatever transportation expenses, and I expense that. And then I think I usually also provide receipts. Sometimes they want receipts, so I usually do it at cost. I mean, they’re already charging big for my time. So especially, I charge for travel time as well, so those expenses are peanuts compared to hourly rates. Right?

Noah Bolmer: When you’re traveling to a new venue, do you have to go through—do you have to learn any of the laws or anything specific about working in an unfamiliar state? For instance, does your attorney prep you for, hey, the laws in this state say that we have to do something a special way. Do you ever run into differences that affect you as an expert witness when going into a new venue?

Linda van Roosmalen: I only do cases in the United States and between the states. I mean, site visits are all the same. I do believe that there are sometimes requirements related to report writing, but it hasn’t really affected me. I mean, I write my reports so that they can work in any state.

Noah Bolmer: Sure, absolutely. Let’s talk about preparation a little bit. When you’re getting ready for a deposition or perhaps a cross-examination, you know that a big day is coming. Do you have any pre-trial routine that you like to do? I have expert witnesses who to do yoga in the morning or drink a bunch of coffee, or “No, I only fast on the big day.” Do you have your own routine that you go through in advance?

Linda van Roosmalen: That’s a good question. The depositions are stressful, in my opinion. For me they’re stressful. It feels like you’re back in school having to prepare for a verbal exam, and it’s not a nice feeling. But I’ve been to trial just a few times, not a lot, I think it’s maybe even two- or three-times depositions I did several more than that and mitigation meetings. But yeah, the depositions are stressful. They’re usually videoed and recorded. But the nice thing is what the opposing counsel sees is they read the transcription, so they don’t see silence in the transcription. So, what I tend to do is, if I’m nervous answering a question or I’m not 100% sure how to answer a question yet, I’m just quiet, I wait, I look at my report, I look through it in my head, I think about it and then I just start talking because the transcript doesn’t show, “Hey, she had a two-minute pause.” That’s one thing that puts me at ease. Also, at the pre-meeting I usually have with my counsel, they usually go through questions that might be asked. And another tip is, of course, to have your report in front of you and your opinions straight and don’t veer from your opinions. I mean, those are your opinions, and you don’t have to go beyond that.

Noah Bolmer: Have you found things like mock cross-examinations useful?

Linda van Roosmalen: I think most of the council tries to do that on the phone when you’re meeting with them about your opinions. I think they prepare you by asking you certain questions and seeing how your responses are. They sometimes already do that really early on, but I haven’t really had that as a formal cross-examination type of exercise. We usually meet before a deposition. We meet like an hour or two before to go through questions and then get started.

Noah Bolmer: Do you have one or two tentpole cases, cases that either reinforce something about the way that you go about expert witnessing or change something about the way that you go about expert witnessing that you can talk about? Obviously, you don’t need to divulge any names or anything like that but if you have any stories that you can share.

Linda van Roosmalen: I had one case that really I will never forget, and this has to do with the fact it’s always important to look at all the evidence and ask for visuals, ask for accident reports. This was a case where a wheelchair user was literally run over by a freight train, and they wanted to know what happened and how, and there was a very grainy video that I watched probably 50 times to figure out what exactly happened. How did it happen? And so, for me it was really important to be extremely detail-oriented and look at the visuals before listening to what people thought would happen. So yeah, and maybe what I like about the case is to really get to why something happened. Was it technology, was it the person, or was it the environment? Which one was it, and how could it have been prevented? So that’s kind of what makes me tick too. That’s why I keep doing these cases, because of these three intricate questions, of which one’s the one.

Noah Bolmer: Is that what you find meaningful about being an expert witness?

Linda van Roosmalen: Yeah, absolutely yeah. For me to really understand how technology, or the way people use technology, caused something to happen, in the case of this train accident is that this wheelchair user was actually going backwards. He was propelling his wheelchair backwards over the crossroads and therefore couldn’t really see where he was going and yeah, it was very unfortunate. It’s interesting sometimes how people misuse or use technology and therefore get hurt.

Noah Bolmer: Speaking of technology, telepresence has become a major since the pandemic. Really, telepresence has become one of the main ways that we interact with the courtroom, with the judge and even with the engaging attorneys. Has that change changed anything about the way that you go about expert witnessing? Is it, is the demeanor different? Does it feel different to not be there in the room?

Linda van Roosmalen: I have not been involved with a remote deposition, to be honest, and also not a remote trial. That said, since COVID, what has been improved I mean more lenient is that the local inspections. They could not happen, of course, during COVID because people were not traveling. Right?  The local inspections were kind of replaced by taking really good photos. I actually have been with council and an iPad and doing FaceTime, being able to do a remote inspection using video technology. So, with that concerned, I really like the fact that it’s much more open and it allows me to do cases that are further away and I don’t have to travel. So yeah, from a visual inspection perspective, technology has really helped, although I still like to see something with my own eyes. In certain cases, you still need to take measurements and angles and distances and see with your own eyes what might have happened. But, in some cases you don’t need it if. If you know what kind of wheelchair was used and those wheelchairs are one in a dozen you don’t necessarily need to go out and inspect it. Photo information and seeing what a wheelchair looks like in photos is fine.

Noah Bolmer: Shifting gears. Let’s talk about the general a little bit. How does an expert witness get off on the right foot with their engaging attorney? What are the qualities that lead to positive, effective, efficient expert witness engagement in general?

Linda van Roosmalen: More is less to voice your opinion than you know where you stand, I think it is important. I like to be very transparent and helpful in educating the attorney on my expertise and how it relates to his case. Does it mean that I almost tell him how, if he had a case, yes or no? Yes, I probably do. But that also gives you more chance of getting the case and helps me determine whether I am on the right side of the case. Can I support him in this case?

A few cases where it was a plaintiff’s case where a wheelchair user got hurt in a public transport vehicle and I thought, well, yeah, it’s oftentimes, in majority of cases, it’s the transporter’s fault that they didn’t secure or restrain a person in a wheelchair. But while I was asking some questions and actually dove into the case a little bit more after I was retained, I came to the conclusion that it was actually the wheelchair user’s fault. They just were independent; they wanted to get out. They were bluntly just disobeying any type of request from the transporter. So that means that the incident could not have been prevented necessarily.

Noah Bolmer: Sure.

Linda van Roosmalen: So, I think it’s really important to get to some of those questions during an initial interview so that on both ends, you know where you stand.

Noah Bolmer: Have you ever had any bad experiences, or are there any red flags that you look out for in a new engagement?

Linda van Roosmalen: Well, the one I was just mentioning is one of them. I actually had a bad experience with an attorney that wanted at all costs a voice for his client that got injured in public transportation. He just wanted to sue the transporter for a lot of money because his client got injured and I basically came to the conclusion that it was not the transporter’s fault. He could not have done anything to prevent this incident. So, I don’t think he wants my report. And then this attorney tried to make me change my opinion in my report so that it would benefit him, which I can’t do. I’m an honest person. I will not change my opinion, and actually this is an important part, because if I had changed my opinion, guess what? Three cases later, another attorney might find my case, my opinion, and use it against me. So, at all costs, you have to be extremely honest in your opinions, stand behind your opinions, and yeah, otherwise it will. It will come in and catch you later on.

Noah Bolmer: That’s, you bring up a good point. You know, expert witnesses are often such as yourself. You’re published. When you’ve written on a specific topic or opined in a specific way, that can come back to haunt you, they can come back and try and impeach you on things that you’ve said. As somebody who’s been doing this for quite a long time, how do you keep track of everything that you’ve ever said to make sure that you don’t accidentally contradict yourself? What if information changes or technology changes and you’ve changed your mind about something? How do you deal with those sorts of eventualities?

Linda van Roosmalen: Well, women never change their minds. Sorry, but as long as you’re being honest, I don’t think you will change your mind. That’s why it’s really important to look at the evidence. Make sure that you take the right decision based on evidence. That means that the output can never change, so it never happened to me that there was something that I had to change my mind about.

Noah Bolmer: Sure, absolutely. Before we wrap up, do you have any last advice for expert witnesses or attorneys who work with experts?

Linda van Roosmalen: Yeah, maybe one tip. As I said, I have a day job, although I may eventually want to do more expert witness work. For me it’s important to keep a network of attorneys that think positively about me. If I get a case that I could work on, but I don’t have the time or bandwidth, I always try to refer them to somebody else that I know has that expertise and is able to help, so that, yeah, they think positively about me and they might check back later on. I usually do think about the case or hear them out, maybe give some direction, but, bonding with an attorney or a firm is important.

Noah Bolmer: Sage advice, Dr. van Roosmalen. Thank you so much for joining me here today.

Linda von Roosmalen: Thank you for having me

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

Dr. Linda van Roosmalen

Dr. Linda van Roosmalen is the lead usability designer for Philips and principal at LINC Design. She is an expert in medical device safety and usability. Dr. van Roosmalen holds a PhD in rehabilitation science from the University of Pittsburgh.