There are a lot of cynics out there that think expert witnesses are often shady characters who will lend their credibility to any personal injury attorney if there’s a buck in it for them. Picture someone like Dr. Nick Riveria on The Simpsons who blatantly lies and exaggerates whenever he testifies.
While that may make great television, it’s not reality. In the real world, judges and juries care about the credentials of expert witnesses – they have to be actual experts, and real experts care about their professional reputations.
What happens on a witness stand is part of the public record and typically goes on the expert’s Curriculum Vitae, or CV.
Our firm Colucci, Colucci & Marcus, P.C., has been working with expert witnesses for decades and a lot of that cooperation is only possible because of the relationships we’ve established with well-qualified experts. They have day jobs as professors, engineers, doctors, etc. Their careers would suffer if the testimony they provided was flawed.
When we hire an expert witness there is usually a substantial cost, but we’re not paying for them to compromise their integrity. We need their integrity to be rock-solid for this case and any future cases we may bring them into. We don’t want malleable experts, we want skilled ones with excellent reputations because they help us win cases. And if we’re reaching out to hire an expert, we believe in our case and know that they will agree that our client has a viable matter.
