By Noah Bolmer

Round Table Group’s co-founder, Chris Crone, has been connecting great experts with those who need them for a quarter century; he knows what works and what doesn’t. Check out his top tips for getting yourself out there, building your client list, and getting repeat business.  

Keep Consulting 

Noah Bolmer: What is the best strategy, generally, for experts to promote themselves? Should expert witnesses focus on their consulting work, expert witnessing, or some combination?  

Chris Crone: Repeat customers are great. As you develop your consulting practice, stay in the good graces of the individuals who have hired you. It’s common for litigators to have recurrent themes in their practice which lead to them calling on favorite experts many times over the years. Also, a client with whom you had a great working relationship is likely to recommend you to a peer when the right time comes, especially if you share that you enjoyed working with them/being an expert witness and would be happy to do it again.  

Beyond that, we frequently hear that overtly advertising yourself as an expert witness can cause issues during depositions and cross-examinations (when the other side may attempt to paint you as a “gun for hire”). Focusing mostly on your expertise and consulting work and merely mentioning expert witness work as a type of consulting you work on seems to be a good balance for most experts. 

Should I Attend Industry Events?

Noah Bolmer: What are some of the traditional, offline ways that experts can promote themselves? For instance, are conferences and tradeshows a good use of time and budget? 

Chris Crone: You cannot be an expert witness without having become an expert in something, so going to events in your field to build your expertise and network with peers will probably be part of your life at some point. The more people who know you and the more those people know what you’re looking for, the more often you’re going to serendipitously get introduced to some of the opportunities you want. We’d never try to talk you out of going to events in which you have a personal interest—but attending legal trade events in hopes of meeting litigators who might hire you is probably inefficient. 

Note that industry events offer disproportionate value to those who speak or present—more people get to know a good speaker than any amount of networking you could do. Even if attorneys aren’t typically in a conference’s audience, litigators will often review the speaker lists or board members of appropriate organizations when they are looking for expert witnesses who are the “experts other experts turn to” in that field.  

Are Expert Witness Opportunities Posted on the Internet?

Noah Bolmer: What are some of the most effective web-based strategies for locating jobs? Should expert witnesses use traditional job or gig sites?  

Chris Crone: You won’t typically find expert witness work via job or gig sites. Most attorneys are not interested in posting their expert needs publicly—particularly for the larger and/or most confidential matters—and they’re not at all interested in hearing from hundreds of applicants!  

Public databases like SEAK can get you noticed, but paying directories that say you’re looking for expert witness work has a couple of drawbacks: the advertising itself suggests you might not be a top-tier expert in your field (since you’re having to advertise to get work) and could be used to paint you as a hired gun. Being a part of the network of referral firms like Round Table Group helps you get introduced to attorneys with targeted opportunities with less public risk. 

Noah Bolmer: What can experts do to raise their profile, so they are more likely to be approached by referral firms and law firms? 

Chris Crone: The best way to be found is to actually be a well-regarded expert in your field. Be well-published, be a speaker, on the editorial board of a relevant industry journal, etc.  

LinkedIn is a great resource for experts because it’s a completely acceptable place to share your current professional interests and experience, as well as any content you might have, and it’s built to support you doing a bit of networking. Other social media channels might work depending on your expertise, your industry, and flair for self-promotion, but they’ll all take some entrepreneurial behavior to get you what LinkedIn gives you for free! 

Does Advertising Work?

Noah Bolmer: Does traditional advertising have a place in expert witnessing? Is there any utility to engage advertising firms or consultancies?  

Chris Crone: Unless you already have a very thriving practice, doing what we normally think of as “advertising” is probably inefficient. A Super Bowl ad is out of budget, of course, but so is a lot of what big companies do when they create formal advertising. 

As an expert, your best advertising is typically you!  

You’ll probably get your best bang for the buck by doing something which may happen naturally—being a good expert and talking about the things you’re an expert in. If you enjoy writing or speaking about topics or developments in your niche of your field, enthusiastically share your knowledge with the world on a website or a blog or a podcast or social media channel—whichever seems best to you. Share and connect with your friends and peers for the love of being passionate about your field. 

By doing this, you’ll create a repository of content that’s most relevant to the people who would find you the perfect expert. Google loves to index unique expert content and people looking for the expert subfields in which you’re specifically interested will be more likely to find you. 

One warning that’s uniquely relevant to expert witnesses who write or speak in public: every word you say could potentially be used against you when you are being deposed or cross-examined. That means that not only might you want to steer clear of controversial or political topics—but be careful about positions you take in your writings. Opposing litigators may filter through your publications looking for an opportunity to claim that you believe the opposite of what you’re saying in their case. 

Noah Bolmer: Can experts leverage generative AI to produce ad-copy without the expense of traditional advertising agencies? 

Chris Crone: Generative artificial intelligence may be able to help you draft posts more quickly, but the risks are high—details matter very much to litigators and expert witnesses—don’t let AI make you look like an idiot. The legal space has much more subtlety and confidentiality than even experienced human advertising or PR support staff are used to! 

What Should & Shouldn’t Be in My CV?

Noah Bolmer: What are some best practices for CV writing, and social media profiles to put your best foot forward, while avoiding potential privacy pitfalls? 

Chris Crone: LinkedIn often suffices to summarize your qualifications in an initial introduction to an attorney, but most attorneys will want something more formal when it comes time to file with the court. That’s where your resume or curriculum vitae fits in. A CV gives a thorough summary of your professional life. From the court’s perspective, it lays out the experiences that allegedly make you a qualified expert witness.

If it isn’t about your professional life, it shouldn’t be on your resume. For instance, you shouldn’t include your birthday or social security number or other government-issued identification, your marital status, the names and ages of your children. 

Posting your previous work history, educational information, and publications all in one place seems like it ought to be a little risky, but motivated litigators (not to mention fraudsters) are already very gifted at finding information about you. And if your CV has been submitted to a court, it has already become a public record. So, make sure your CV includes what is needed to establish your professional bona fides in a thorough manner, but otherwise keep it slim. For instance, include your city and state (attorneys often need local experts) but not your home address.  

Some experts ask us if they should have multiple versions of their CVs, aimed at different areas of expertise. When applying for jobs, customizing your resume to highlight how perfect you are for each unique opportunity works well… Each resume you submit is private, and customization helps you beat the HR systems and representatives trying to reduce the number of applicants. 

But lots of people see CVs in litigation. Opposing attorneys may grill you on why you included certain experiences in one version but not another—are you trying to hide something? Or they may ask you if your CV is complete and accurate, and then point out things that are missing from it showing you not to be very meticulous or observant. It is easier to keep one thorough, accurate CV. If you’d like to highlight the most relevant portions of your background when initially sharing this information with an attorney, do so in the equivalent of a cover letter. 

Conclusion 

The best marketing for expert witnesses is to make yourself well-known in your field. Stay current, publish regularly, and seek speaking engagements. With a high-quality, complete LinkedIn profile and a concise, relevant CV, expert witness work will find you, especially as part of a high-quality expert referral service.  

Interested in being considered for expert witness opportunities? Consider signing up with Round Table Group! For over 30 years, we have been helping litigators locate, evaluate, and employ only the most qualified expert witnesses. Contact us at 202-908-4500 for more information or sign up now!