Then there’s the arrow that reads, “Willingness to say what we need to win the case.”
It doesn’t happen often, but it does pay well and can be interesting: occasionally I accept an engagement as a testifying ethics expert in a law suit. I have a rule, however, that surprisingly (or not) seems to come as a shock to many potential clients. They may be buying my opinion, but they are not necessarily buying the opinion they want. After I review the facts, documents and issues involved, I will render my opinion, but no promises. I won’t take a case unless I generally agree that the theory of the side hiring me is plausible, but after all the facts are in and I’ve done my analysis, if the case of the client whose lawyer hired me is weak, I will say so.
Strangely, some lawyers seem to have a problem with this, even when the expert insisting on integrity is an ethics expert. I am currently in settlement mode with a law firm that hired me to render my opinion regarding the billing submitted by another firm to the law firm’s client. Part of their argument, in claiming malpractice against the billing firm, was that its billing was excessive, unreasonable and inflated, a violation of Rule 1.5 of the Rules of Professional Conduct governing lawyers. I reviewed the billing statements, and they could have been inflated—some of the methods of stating who did what work was vague, and there sure was a lot of work billed on the matter, by an astounding number of lawyers—-but I could only assess that to a level of certainty sufficient to be certain in my own mind, much less state it under oath, if I could examine what all that work produced. This the law firm that hired me refused to produce, perhaps because the time it would have taken me to review it thoroughly would have been very expensive. But how could I decide whether the amount of money billed for a product was unreasonable without being able to determine what the product was? I couldn’t. Thus my written opinion stated what I could say honestly and with authority: based on the billing statements and the materials I was allowed to review, I could only speculate on whether the billing was proper or not. It was possible. More than that, I could not say.
The law firm was not happy, although they never spoke to me about it. The firm just settled the case, and never paid me. (My very reasonable fee for services was $6,000, and if you’ve ever spent much time reviewing legal billing statements, you would know that they got off cheap.) You see, it didn’t really want an ethics expert, or an independent expert, or an honest, informed, professional analysis. They wanted a pre-determined opinion, bought with cash, delivered to specifications. Well, they won’t get that from me.
Welcome to the world of “expert witnesses.”
Ethics Alarms 
I’ve done some expert witness work. And it pays very, very well indeed.
The duty of an expert witness is to the court – which side in the case pays is immaterial, though the paying client does get to determine what kind of reports you produce, and the terms of reference.
That’s not just in theory, it’s in fact – otherwise you’re an incompetent and dishonest prostitute, not an expert.
If I ever went into sex work, I’d try to be the best I could be at it. – honest and competent.
Experts are ALL corrupt and should be locked up
I’m sorry that that has been your experience. I don’t know, it may even be typical where you are. But universal? Nope. Not even remotely.
The last time I prepared such a report, neither side was happy. One side because they were hoping to show deliberate fraud worth $$$$ in exemplary damages, the other because my investigations showed there was massive incompetence instead, for which they were wholly liable. No fraud though, the bogus, apparently fraudulent accounts in the system were old test data inadvertently left in at delivery.
And I didn’t get court appearance fees worth $$$$ to me, as my report was so clear, comprehensive, and well-evidenced that an out of court settlement was inevitable. Even the lawyers didn’t get much from it.
It is nice to see someone (esp a lawyer) bringing this up, as this is one of the center hypocrisies in the system which ultimately lead to “innocents” being victimized with pre-determined guilty verdicts due to “expert” opinions. There are so many ways this is wrong, but since they are “expert”, their word ends up having more weight, and it essentially becomes; not a matter of justice; but a matter of how much money you are able to spend to buy corrupt “experts” who will back your side, even when it is wrong.
This does border on free speech issues as well, where one believes that if they pay enough they can force anyone to say whatever they want. That being said, perhaps you might wish to review the following (it is a little bit of an older article, but has very controversial grounds which I think may incite a nice variety of responses, and I would like to see where you stand – ethically with it) : http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2012/09/27/f-courts-youtube-free-speech.html
Such as recovered memory therapy used in some child abuse cases.
Some of those “therapists” did far worse to ultimately impede the prosecution of child sex abuse cases than Mike McQueary ever did.
That is jumpsuit! A person CAN NOT pay someone to lie about a person or the truth!!
My life was destroyed because of assholes like this….if you agree with them then you can rot in he’ll or a prison cell where they ALL need to be
I said bullshit NOT jumpsuit
I’m curious: how did it come out “jumpsuit”? I kind of like the epithet “jumpsuit!”
For some reason, this has had me laughing uncontrollably for the past 15 minutes.
I am sick of corrupt lawyers judges and doctors being allowed to ruin people’s lives at their own whim because they think they can.
My life was destroyed by a corrupt expert witness child neurologist in South Bend Indiana when he took pay to write a defamatory, bullying and libelous testimony or opinion about me, my family and my health.
The man never met me or my family but was allowed by the Courts to write this craps which ruined my Americans with Disabilities lawsuit I filed Pro Se to fight my former employers because they maliciously created fabricated stories and lies about me to fire me once I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis….
Now I fight back and expose all of them