{"id":5210,"date":"2016-11-18T20:29:19","date_gmt":"2016-11-19T00:29:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/?p=5210"},"modified":"2016-11-18T20:29:19","modified_gmt":"2016-11-19T00:29:19","slug":"civil-litigation-lawyers-need-even-more-continuing-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/2016\/11\/18\/civil-litigation-lawyers-need-even-more-continuing-education\/","title":{"rendered":"Civil litigation lawyers need even more continuing education"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lawyers\u00a0need even more continuing education, particularly in the practice of civil litigation involving experts<\/em>.\u00a0 We touched on this when I\u00a0was talking\u00a0recently with David Gauthier of\u00a0Gauthier Law, Saint John, NB. \u00a0I had identified two topics I thought worthy of seminars at an APTLA conference (Atlantic Provinces Trial Lawyers Association).\u00a0 These were monitoring the cost of civil litigation involving experts\u00a0<\/em>and expert report writing<\/em>.<\/p>\n

If continuing education is important within one’s discipline, it seems some continuing education is important at the interface between one’s discipline and others.\u00a0 Particularly others like an expert’s work.\u00a0 Some civil litigation doesn’t go anywhere till the expert’s work is done.<\/p>\n

My forensic engineering investigative\u00a0work has benefited from learning about the civil litigation process and what the justice system expects.\u00a0 It occurs to me that all participants in this process could benefit from more knowledge about the\u00a0expert’s work\u00a0– what’s going on at the interface between our respective\u00a0disciplines.<\/p>\n

David and I\u00a0were chatting at the request of APTLA’s executive director, Libby Kinghorne.\u00a0 I had got in touch with APTLA about attending their\u00a0recent conference in Halifax as an observer.\u00a0\u00a0I wanted\u00a0to learn how APTLA organize and conduct their seminars so I could recommend suitable\u00a0topics at the interface for future\u00a0conferences.<\/p>\n

I think\u00a0APTLA should do this based, for example, on:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. My experience investigating the cause of failures and personal injuries in the built environment\u00a0in Atlantic Canada and overseas,<\/li>\n
  2. An advocate’s obligation to understand the expert’s work in a case and be able to explain this to the justice system,<\/li>\n
  3. Rule changes governing experts, like Rule 55 in Nova Scotia,<\/li>\n
  4. Principles governing advocates communicating with experts<\/li>\n
  5. The justice system’s interest in expediting\u00a0the resolution of cases, and.<\/li>\n
  6. What’s taking place elsewhere in North America.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    I did attend the conference: It’s All Wrongful: Death, Dismissal, Conviction & More<\/strong>\u00a0held at the\u00a0Delta Halifax earlier this month, November 4th.\u00a0 It was good.\u00a0 I was impressed by the comprehensiveness of the subject matter, the tight, packed-full schedule, staying on schedule, the good turnout from the Atlantic region – 83 attendees and 13 sponsors, 12 interesting exhibitors and the food fare.<\/p>\n

    I’ve got a new respect for wordsmiths; they can focus on a topic, say only\u00a0what needs to be said then get on to the next interesting topic.\u00a0 APTLA\u00a0obviously\u00a0have experience organizing these conferences.<\/p>\n

    The conference on the Friday was an intense, all-day continuing education conference by well prepared local speakers and one, at-times, quite rousing American speaker, Tom Vesper, West Atlantic City, NJ who seemed bent on challenging the locals.\u00a0 The junior lawyers had something to say\u00a0too and they were well prepared.\u00a0\u00a0There were\u00a0lots of\u00a0thoughtful questions and comments from the floor suggesting the audience was engaged and interested.<\/p>\n

    I’ve identified a number of topics and issues from my blog site that I believe are worthy of an APTLA conference.\u00a0 I started\u00a0blogging in\u00a0June, 2012 about the nature\u00a0and methods of forensic engineering for non-technical\u00a0readers.\u00a0 It wasn’t long, however, before the issues at the interface between our specialties began to appear in my writing.\u00a0 Some of these – quite a number, actually, are listed below gleaned from the 141 articles that I’ve published\u00a0to date\u00a0plus some ideas I\u00a0picked up\u00a0during the recent APTLA conference:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. The advocate’s responsibility to know something of the expert’s work\u00a0and able to explain the technical issues to the justice system<\/li>\n
    2. The “life” cycle of a structure, particularly the design and construction phase<\/li>\n
    3. Monitoring the cost of civil litigation involving experts<\/li>\n
    4. How to reduce the cost of civil litigation<\/li>\n
    5. The eight different ways – at least eight, of retaining an expert in keeping with the worth of the file<\/li>\n
    6. The high standard required of expert report writing compliant with Rules like 55 in Nova Scotia<\/li>\n
    7. Review of rules governing experts in Canada<\/li>\n
    8. Peer review of an expert’s report<\/li>\n
    9. Peer review of a forensic investigation<\/li>\n
    10. The less affluent\u00a0nature of the small and medium size cases\u00a0typical of\u00a0Atlantic Canada<\/li>\n
    11. The “generalist” engineer in Atlantic Canada<\/li>\n
    12. Case history of a small, less affluent case\/forensic investigation<\/li>\n
    13. Case history of a catastrophic, affluent forensic investigation<\/li>\n
    14. Typical stages in a forensic investigation (Like with lawyers who don’t just walk into court, “Lot of investigation is necessary beforehand – an engineer just doesn’t walk into court and give an opinion”)<\/li>\n
    15. Why the difficulty estimating the cost of forensic investigation?<\/li>\n
    16. Guidelines forensic engineers refer to in doing their work<\/li>\n
    17. Determining the\u00a0standard of care in forensic investigation<\/li>\n
    18. The importance of an expert staying in\u00a0his\/her sand box<\/li>\n
    19. The 1,600 – at least, different types of experts in North America<\/li>\n
    20. Mistakes experts make that affect lawyers<\/li>\n
    21. Mistakes civil litigation lawyers make that affect experts<\/li>\n
    22. Lawyers visiting\u00a0the site involved in their case – valuable!<\/li>\n
    23. An expert’s role in assessing the merit of a case<\/li>\n
    24. The use of drones in forensic photography<\/li>\n
    25. How to carefully<\/em> select an expert.\u00a0 Counsel, know\u00a0thy expert…!!<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      Quite a mouth-full.\u00a0 But,\u00a0look closely\u00a0and see how relevant many of these are to the continuing\u00a0education of civil litigation\u00a0lawyers. \u00a0Several of these topics with a similar theme could be addressed in\u00a0an APTLA\u00a0conference with a format similar to the one a couple of weeks ago.<\/p>\n

      For example, a\u00a0specialty litigation afternoon<\/em> could address the following:<\/p>\n

        \n
      1. Structural collapse litigation<\/li>\n
      2. Component malfunction litigation<\/li>\n
      3. Slip, trip and fall accidents<\/li>\n
      4. Traffic accident reconstruction<\/li>\n
      5. Environmental contamination<\/li>\n
      6. Earthworks failure, e.g., landslides<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        Key note speakers from away could be invited\u00a0from:<\/p>\n

          \n
        1. Canada<\/li>\n
        2. SEAK, Inc., Falmouth, Massachusetts<\/li>\n
        3. Expert Communications, Houston, Texas<\/li>\n
        4. Elsewhere in the US<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

          If for no other reason do this – address topics at an APTLA conference at\u00a0the expert-civil litigation\u00a0interface –\u00a0to increase the chances the justice system gets the expert it\u00a0needs and the plaintiff gets justice and the damage award s\/he deserves<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

          \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

           <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

          Lawyers\u00a0need even more continuing education, particularly in the practice of civil litigation involving experts.\u00a0 We touched on this when I\u00a0was talking\u00a0recently with David Gauthier of\u00a0Gauthier Law, Saint John, NB. \u00a0I had identified two topics I thought worthy of seminars at … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5210"}],"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=5210"}],"version-history":[{"count":38,"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5210\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5249,"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5210\/revisions\/5249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}