Expert witnesses are commonly used in legal practice. These witnesses are experts in a specific field, such as expert witness finance. Their job is to conduct a scientific analysis of data, documents, and other information in a case and form an expert opinion. Therefore, hiring the right expert witness is vital.
Experience
Your expert witness should have extensive experience in their field. You may seek individuals with higher degrees as well. They should also have extensive data and document analysis experience. They should understand the scientific methods of data analysis, so their opinions are built on solid evidence.
Finally, they should have a testifying experience. You want your witness to be comfortable giving testimony and answering questions. They should be calm and confident on the witness stand and in depositions.
Communication Skills
You need a witness that can present complicated data in an uncomplicated manner so even the least-educated person on the jury understands it. Therefore, you need witnesses with superior communication skills. They should also speak confidently and clearly. You could hire industry leaders and still lose the case if they cannot clearly convey the case facts and reason for their opinions to the jury. Therefore, consider individuals with an extensive public speaking or teaching experience.
Methodology
Your expert should share their methodology with you during the analysis process. However, if your methodology is different from theirs, you may run into challenges later because experts must share their opinions based on their methodologies, not yours. Make sure they can defend their methodologies.
Personality
An effective expert witness will not be too formal or too casual in their speech and demeanor. In addition, these professionals cannot appear to favor one side of the case over another, but they shouldn’t appear to be in conflict with the side that hired them. They must be able to share the facts of the case without appearing condescending or unknowledgeable.
Expert witnesses can be valuable legal assets but take the time to hire the right expert.