{"id":2737,"date":"2014-05-17T13:31:20","date_gmt":"2014-05-17T13:31:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/?p=2737"},"modified":"2014-05-17T17:39:46","modified_gmt":"2014-05-17T17:39:46","slug":"how-to-write-an-expert-witness-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/2014\/05\/17\/how-to-write-an-expert-witness-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Guidelines for writing an expert witness report"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>An expert&#8217;s report is a critical, make-or-break document.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span> On the one hand, a well-written report will make testifying later at discovery and trial much easier &#8230; On the other hand, a poorly written report &#8230; can turn discovery or trial into a nightmare &#8230;&#8221; (Ref. 1)\u00a0 And, I might add,\u00a0turn rebutting the report\u00a0prior to\u00a0discovery\u00a0into a cakewalk.<\/p>\n<p>Today, with the greatly increased emphasis on the expert&#8217;s report &#8211; see blog posted May 1, technical evidence is presented and responded to quickly and clearly by all parties unencumbered by the discovery process.<\/p>\n<p>Today, you must retain an expert who has two basic skills, in addition to the motherhood requirements of appropriate education and experience:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Skilled investigating the cause of the engineering failure or accident<\/li>\n<li>Skilled in presenting investigative findings in a well-written report<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The chances that\u00a0your expert\u00a0will be cross-examined is getting close to almost negligible, and, if they are, it will be easier &#8211; if they have a well-written report.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Guidelines&#8221; on writing reports have been around a long time.\u00a0 There&#8217;s always a\u00a0chapter on writing reports\u00a0in the\u00a0books on forensic engineering, science,\u00a0and expert witnessing.\u00a0 I&#8217;ve read a\u00a0few of these books and, generally, I&#8217;m not impressed with the\u00a0report writing sections.\u00a0 Not\u00a0even those published by\u00a0our learned associations.\u00a0(Ref. 2, 3)<\/p>\n<p>They differ in how they guide, for one thing.\u00a0 Many would not meet the requirements of civil procedure rules\u00a0in eastern Canada, like Rule 55 in Nova Scotia.<\/p>\n<p>And, almost without exception, there is no comment on the sorting, synthesizing, and analysing of the data from a forensic investigation,\u00a0the drawing of well-supported conclusions, and the formation of an opinion.\u00a0 Unquestionably, as important a task as collecting the data.\u00a0 There are some but they are\u00a0few.\u00a0(Ref.\u00a04, 5)<\/p>\n<p>Your expert must be able to present the findings of their forensic investigation in a well-written report.\u00a0 That&#8217;s not always being done.\u00a0 <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>Yet, it&#8217;s critical today<\/strong>.<\/span>\u00a0 There&#8217;s help.<\/p>\n<p>Three experienced trial lawyers in the U.S. &#8211; James Mangraviti, and his co-authors, Steve Babitsky and Nadine Donovan, have addressed this problem in great depth.\u00a0 Their quite massive 560 page, 11.25&#8243;\u00a0x\u00a09.0&#8243; x 1.25&#8243;\u00a0text goes into\u00a0considerable detail on all aspects of expert report writing.\u00a0(Ref. 1)<\/p>\n<p><em>How to Write an Expert Witness Report<\/em> was published\u00a0this winter,\u00a02014.\u00a0 It includes many\u00a0well developed check lists,\u00a0typical\u00a0well-written\u00a0reports for\u00a0common forensic investigations, and executive summaries.\u00a0 One long\u00a0summary for the entire book and\u00a0one at the start of\u00a0each of the 14 chapters.\u00a0 I find the check lists and executive summaries particularly valuable.\u00a0 Also the 20\u00a0pages of &#8220;<em>Advice from the Trenches<\/em>&#8221; &#8211;\u00a0comments\u00a0on drafting expert reports by different experts throughout the U.S.<\/p>\n<p>You can see the book&#8217;s contents at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.seak.com\">www.seak.com<\/a>\u00a0 It is similar to another they published in\u00a02002, <em>Writing and Defending\u00a0Your\u00a0Expert Report<\/em>,\u00a0but much\u00a0more comprehensive.\u00a0(Ref. 6)<\/p>\n<p>The recent text\u00a0is based on the authors&#8217;\u00a0experiences as trial lawyers,\u00a0review of\u00a0discovery and trial\u00a0transcripts, the response to their earlier book, and suggestions from\u00a0specialists in many fields.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve used their older text for years and the check lists and summaries there and now use the new one.\u00a0 I actually\u00a0recommended some time ago to readers of my blog\u00a0to give a copy of the older text to\u00a0their experts.\u00a0 I now recommend giving the updated book.<\/p>\n<p>Mangraviti et al&#8217;s\u00a0text takes the guidelines on\u00a0how to write an expert report &#8211; and a rebuttal report, for that matter,\u00a0to a whole new level.\u00a0 <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>There is no excuse\u00a0for anything less than a well-written report going to counsel and the justice system on the cause of\u00a0a failure\u00a0or accident.<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0 In view of the increased emphasis on the expert&#8217;s report, it&#8217;s imperative that guidelines like these be\u00a0followed if the truth\u00a0of a matter is to come out.<\/p>\n<p><strong>References<\/strong><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Mangraviti, James J., Babitsky, Steven, and Donovan, Nadine Nasser, <em>How to Write an Expert Witness Report, <\/em>SEAK, Inc., Falmouth, MA 2014<\/li>\n<li>Lewis, Gary L. ed, <em>Guidelines for Forensic Engineering Practice<\/em>, American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), 2003<\/li>\n<li>ASCE, <em>Guidelines for Failure Investigation<\/em>, 1989<\/li>\n<li>Toulmin, Stephen E., <em>The Uses of Argument<\/em>, Cambridge University Press, 2003<\/li>\n<li>Noon, Randall, <em>Introduction to Forensic Engineering<\/em>, CRC Press, Inc., Boca Raton, Florida, 1992<\/li>\n<li>Babitsky, Steven, and Mangraviti, James J., <em>Writing and Defending Your Expert Report<\/em>, SEAK, Inc., Falmouth, MA 2002<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;An expert&#8217;s report is a critical, make-or-break document.\u00a0 On the one hand, a well-written report will make testifying later at discovery and trial much easier &#8230; On the other hand, a poorly written report &#8230; can turn discovery or trial &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/2014\/05\/17\/how-to-write-an-expert-witness-report\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[16,17],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2737"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2737"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2737\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2762,"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2737\/revisions\/2762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}