Litigation

An Expert-Related Practice Tip from Deposition Checklists and Strategies

By Evan Schaeffer

This is just one of the many practice tips that you'll find liberally scattered throughout the eight chapters of my book, Deposition Checklists and Strategies (James Publishing):

§4:255 Practice Tip: What the Expert Did Not Do

Remember to ask the expert not only what he did to prepare himself to render an opinion, but what he didn?t do. Of course, you cannot come right out and ask, ?Please tell me what you failed to do in rendering an opinion.? Instead, ask the expert whether he did or didn?t do specific things.

In a pharmaceutical case, ask the expert whether he performed these tasks in order to prepare himself to give an opinion:

? Ask the witness whether there was anything that would have been helpful to him in reaching an opinion, but which he lacked the time to do.
? If the witness answers with a list of things for which he lacked time to do, ask why conducting these steps would have helped him to reach an opinion.
? Ask the expert whether or not he personally examined the Plaintiff. If not, then all his knowledge about the Plaintiff?s medical condition must have come from the medical records.
? Ask the witness whether he read all the medical records. If so, is he confident that he obtained them all? Why? Did he ask the defendant?s lawyers to provide him with any additional medical records?
? Ask the witness whether he performed a search of all the relevant literature about the particular issue. If not, why not?
? Ask the expert whether he consulted with other experts in the field. If not, why not?
? Ask the expert if he reviewed all the documents in possession of the defendant that were relevant to his opinion. If so, who provided him with these documents, and how does he know he reviewed all that were relevant?

In other sorts of products-liability cases, you can ask whether the expert performed all relevant tests, conducted a literature search to determine whether there were other incidents of injury similar to the one that gave rise to the lawsuit, and so on.

For more information about the book, see this brochure at James Publishing (pdf). You can also learn more about the book in the following posts at Illinois Trial Practice--

• "Listing the Chapters in My Deposition Book"
• "A Plug for My Deposition Book: Some Specialized Deposition Outlines"
• "My Coverage of Expert Depositions in Deposition Checklists and Strategies"
• "Listing Some of the Practice Tips in My Deposition Book"
• "More Practice Tips from My Deposition Book"

Full post as published by The Illinois Trial Practice Blog on May 15, 2008 (boomark / email).