Posted by Chris Crone on April 25, 2008 9:24 AM |Permalink|TrackBacks (0)

by Lisa Fields

When seeking an expert witness, should you set your sights on someone local, or should you search nationwide? Of course, there's no right answer: Your decision will vary depending on the details of your case.

Regional or Nationwide: How do you decide?

Distant experts can be just as accessible as regional ones, says Round Table Group's Aaron Yoho, because "there's been a change in the way that people conduct business.  People take flights daily for their jobs, so it's not out of the realm of reason for experts to travel to see their clients."

Money might not be a factor, either, Yoho says, since faraway expert witnesses often don't charge more than regional ones--except those from major metropolitan areas.

But, there are reasons beyond money or accessibility for choosing an expert witness in your immediate geographical area.

Consider the following points to determine whether geography makes an impact on your case:

Narrow your search to your geographical area if:

Having someone closer to the scene would be an advantage.

"If it's an engineering case, the expert may want to look at a bridge or building in person instead of relying on pictures," Yoho says.

Juries in your state prefer hometown experts.

"Some jurors perceive expert witnesses from different locations as condescending," says Round Table Group's Phil Davis. "If you choose expert witnesses with local flavor, the juries may relate to them better."

Rules require that expert witnesses are from your region.

"A law in Tennessee states that you have to be a resident of Tennessee, or a contiguous state, if you're going to testify," says Yoho.

"There are also instances where the expert witness needs to have a state's professional engineering license to understand the regulations of a case."

Search for your expert nationwide if:

There's no concrete reason why the expert would have to be local.

"The vast majority of expert witness' work gets accomplished in their own offices," says Yoho. "If they need to go on location, the cost is of no consequence in the long run, considering how inexpensive it is to fly nowadays."

You seek someone with credentials from a notable university.

"In a medical malpractice case, a jury might like someone from Johns Hopkins better than just a local hospital," says Yoho.

Limiting Scope Can Be Daunting

Finding an expert witness on your own can be time-consuming and difficult, especially if you limit yourself to a tiny geographical region, or you're not sure where to start when searching on a nationwide scale.

"We find experts all day every day," says Yoho, "so we're much more expedient and efficient. Our network leads to our success. There's a lot of overhead for attorneys to make the connections we have, and for them to do it four or five times a year, it's not worth their time."

Round Table Group is well-versed in regional and national searches for expert witnesses. "If you're limited by local rules and regulations, we understand those kinds of searches," says Yoho. "If you're looking on a wider scale, we search in a way that makes sense for you: Most of the researchers at Round Table Group start at your location and spiral outward from there. We pride ourselves on finding the best experts."

Posted on March 28, 2007 10:14 AM |Permalink|TrackBacks (0)

by Lisa Fields

When you search for an expert, where's the first place you go? More than likely, you look to web-based databases. Publicly accessible databases can sometimes yield great information, but subscription-based databases often provide invaluable difficult-to-find leads for locating the ideal expert. These subscriptions often provide that "edge" over the opposition.

Round Table Group's search experts routinely work with a number of databases: the firm's comprehensive internal expert database, free database resources available to the general public and many databases that require subscription--and often a hefty fee.

Three of the experts' favorite subscription-based databases are reviewed below.

ZoomInfo's PowerSearch:

By using a service called ZoomInfo PowerSearch, Round Table Group is able to find and extract comprehensive information on over 34 million business professionals and 2 million companies across virtually every industry. ZoomInfo has created this extensive list of professionals by aggregating online sources such as Web sites, press releases, electronic news services publications and SEC filings.

ZoomInfo's database is searchable by a number of criteria, including work history, education level and company name. Of course, the more you narrow your search, the better the results.

"I have heard attorneys have used it successfully for this purpose," Russell Glass, Vice President of Products and Marketing for ZoomInfo. "By categorizing people in certain industries, you can search for exactly the kind of people you need."

The good news is that ZoomInfo's PowerSearch provides contact information for the people it finds, so you won't have to do a second search to locate them. "Other sites will give you all kinds of information about people, but if you can't contact them, it's not useful," says Round Table Group Research Analyst Clark Johnson.

"Consequently, the use of ZoomInfo can often significantly reduce Round Table Group's search time by allowing our team of researchers to communicate more quickly with potential candidates. In fact, when I find experts in Journal articles or similar sources, I often return to ZoomInfo to locate the experts' contact information."

As Glass says, "experience plays a role. We teach people to start broad and narrow their search from there. There's a new development in ZoomInfo's PowerSearch that provides users with keyword suggestions to help tighten their search."

One downside to this service is that it cannot differentiate between a legitimate source (say, an expert on loss prevention) and a person who is identified in articles on the topic (say, someone arrested for shoplifting), says Johnson. "As a consequence, a user of this service may still have to search through numerous names, in order to ensure that the right candidate has been located."

Monster.com:

Round Table Group research analysts often search the resumes listed on Monster.com to find experts for clients. Accessing Monster.com's extensive database of resumes can be an invaluable resource in locating that hard-to-find expert.

"The principal benefit of using Monster.com," says Round Table Group's Mark Swansiger, "is that it provides a user with easy access to the resumes of lots of people who are currently looking for work, even short-term consulting projects."

"It's certainly an innovative way to use Monster," says Steve Sylven of Monster.com. "I assume you would utilize Monster's resume database in a similar way as a hiring manager or recruiter might. But, instead of conducting a keyword search to match a certain amount of experience for a job opening, you would search more broadly to find someone with expertise in a specified area or industry."

One of the best ways to perform a search in Monster.com is by using a combination of keywords and/or geographic, work experience and level of education restrictions in order to narrow a more general search.

Swansiger adds, "Round Table Group's extensive use of Monster.com has taught our team of research professionals to conduct a number of different searches within this database on an individual topic, because the way people enter their data can influence a search's returns."

Of course, Monster.com is not perfect. "The pool of resumes is huge and includes mostly lower-level job-seekers," says Swansiger. "No matter how you search, a lot of extraneous names will come up. But this just means you need to examine credentials of potential candidates very closely. It's a valuable resource if you're willing to put in the effort."

While Monster.com is the largest online resume database, top experts in a number of fields prefer to do their job searching on other, more specialized sites, so you need to be aware of the resources available to the candidates in whom you are most interested.

LexisNexis:

Many attorneys use LexisNexis for case law searches, but Round Table Group research analysts use the same service to find experts. LexisNexis Vice President Tom Hagy explains, "LexisNexis is a must-have resource for finding experts, due not only to its offering of several premier expert witness directories, JurisPro, for example, but also its vast collection of other expert-finding resources, including LexisNexis Jury Verdicts and Settlements reports, Daubert Tracker Case Reports, and more."

LexisNexis' task-based research platform, TotalLitigator, puts these resources at your fingertips. "Once an expert is identified, LexisNexis also offers in-depth background information," Hagy adds. "By performing a single search through over a dozen databases, including case opinions, agency decisions, verdict reports, news, expert directories, and others, LexisNexis Analyzer allows a researcher to conduct comprehensive, yet efficient, investigative research with respect to an expert."

"We search case law that focuses on the subject matter of the litigation, while looking for previous instances where expert witnesses have gone on the record testifying on similar matters," says Round Table Group's Sean Levine. "Often, doing a keyword search using the word 'expert' and descriptive terms about your subject matter will reveal some promising leads." For instance, searching U.S. case law for the word "expert," within seven words of the phrase "smoke detector," should reveal several people who have testified as expert witnesses regarding smoke detectors.

LexisNexis' biggest flaw as it pertains to locating experts may be that it contains so much information, and can be difficult to navigate as a result. "It is often necessary to get specialized training in order to take advantage of LexisNexis' full capabilities," says Levine. "Fortunately, the LexisNexis customer service team makes it relatively easy to sign up for and receive this type of training."

Comprehensive Searches

Finding the right expert for your case can be a time-consuming, convoluted task. When searching for experts, keep in mind that the most comprehensive search may incorporate all three of these subscription databases, plus a number of smaller, but insightful, niche industry databases. "An appropriate budget for subscription databases for purposes of expert search can easily exceed $10,000 per month," says RTG President Robert Hull. Although access to these databases can be costly, the service they provide is invaluable.

A subscription to these services may not be justified for an attorney or firm locating just one or two experts, though the bigger firms may have some of these subscriptions. So do expert search firms, who can save you the cost, time and effort of subscribing yourself. However, be sure to ask your expert search firm how many subscription databases they utilize in their practice. "If the firm isn't using ZoomInfo, Monster.com, LexisNexis, and other reputable subscription-based search engines, it's cutting corners," says Levine.

For a comprehensive expert search, contact the Round Table Group.

Lisa Fields can be reached at Lisa.F@BeTuitive.com.

©2007 BeTuitive Publishing

Posted on January 17, 2007 3:15 PM |Permalink|TrackBacks (0)

Do you seek a toxicologist to support a claim that a person's cancer was linked to on-the-job chemical exposure? What about a mechanical engineer to compare a client's technology to that of a competitor in a patent infringement suit? Or is it a damages matter in a highly specialized industry, where your usual experts for damages determinations have no experience?

No search for an expert is the same, but no matter the field, there are methods to expedite the time-consuming process of finding the right relevant and high-quality experts.

One proven method for finding experts is hunting at appropriate universities for academic experts.

The advantage of academic experts

Aaron Yoho puts it like this: "Academics often teach as part of their profession. As a result, they are frequently very good at explaining complicated topics to relative laymen!"

Academics also have a reputation for being more neutral than an industry expert in the same field. An industry expert may be involved with a competitor of one or both of the litigants, whereas an academic is much less likely to have such conflicts. However, increasingly, companies are funding university departments or individual research projects, so it is important to do rigorous conflict checking in this regard.

Here's how the Round Table Group research team goes about finding exactly the right academic expert for a given case.

Before you get started: general online topic research

Chris Armstrong, Vice President of General Operations with Round Table Group, notes that "it is often difficult to determine exactly what department in the university deals with the subject matter of a particular case. Many universities have several departments in which a potentially qualified professor may work."

As a result, knowing which department's faculty roster to review can often determine whether your search will be successful or not.

Armstrong says you can save yourself time in the long run by building a better understanding of your topic through general online topic research, particularly if you need to know how a borderline topic will be categorized departmentally.

Search for on-topic journal articles

According to Sean Levine, you should review on-topic journal articles on the Internet. Articles on a given topic almost always exist. Some can be found free-of-charge online, but some are only available on fee-based subscription sites such as LexisNexis, or JSTOR (The Scholarly Journal Archive).

Determine who the journal article authors are, note experts quoted within the article, and review bibliographies and citations for other linkages with experts. "Then," Levine says, "review the articles in some detail to make sure the authors seem to have appropriate expertise." Often you can find their contact information by searching Superpages, or on university faculty contact Web pages.

Vet potential experts' bios

Sometimes a professor's Web page and bio will not be entirely instructive on whether they have the expertise to address the issue in the case, Armstrong says.

He continues: "Ideally, a perfect expert will have published on the exact topic or matter at issue in a case, no matter how obscure. An expert who has published on the precise topic will almost always trump an opposing expert with general expertise in the field, but not on the specific point at issue."

That makes it necessary to review the professor's publication list, a task that involves a lot of intricate research and time. Often, it is necessary to follow up with a potential candidate by contacting them and interesting them in qualifying themselves for the case by providing further materials in support of their expertise on the topic.

Local university experts vs. specialized university experts

Levine says that experts from local universities may be less expensive and appreciated for certain kinds of juries. But, because the possible pool of candidates is reduced, the search can be more difficult.

And, while adequate experts can be found at local universities by using the methodologies described in this article, it's important to note that they may not carry the same clout as an expert from a prestigious university or one specializing in the topic.

Rankings of departments in certain subject matter areas are available from a few sources, such as US News & World Report and similar publications, but these rankings may not always be directly applicable to your search. Another good method for discovering top programs is to ask any contacts you may have in adjacent fields.

Experience cuts search time

As you search for multiple experts over time, you can learn which schools to rely on for scholars specializing in particular subject areas. Knowing the reputations of many top universities and their departments helps Round Table Group's researchers find experts more quickly.

Levine says if you can determine which universities are the most prominent in the field, you can then use Advanced Google Search to search within university databases to help find the top academics in your subject area.

Finding out information about university specialties can be worthwhile, but time-consuming. Someone who has already cultivated these relationships and this specialized knowledge may be able to help you find the quality experts you need more quickly.

Round Table Group actually got its start by recruiting professors as experts, and now has a large network of university-based academic experts, which gives them a built-in networking and referral advantage. For more information about how Round Table Group's researchers can connect you with the right expert, go here.

Aaron Yoho, Chris Armstrong and Sean Levine are all members of Round Table Group's expert research team.