Expert Witness Blog
In Optimizing Your Use of Banking and Financial Institution Experts, banking expert witness Michael F. Richards writes:
Selecting the right expert is important, but also optimizing their use is just as important. Following are areas that should be considered and explored. I will not elaborate on each item, as there are numerous articles written with great detail, but highlight the areas I feel can be optimized.
Selecting The Right Expert Focus on the background of the expert. Banking includes many specialized areas that include but are not limited to lending in the following areas; commercial credit, consumer credit, agricultural credit, mortgage lending, manufactured housing, factoring, construction lending, dealer financing, recreational vehicle financing, land development, participations, credit cards, and merchant credit. On the operational side of the bank they include but are not limited to the following areas; teller transactions, checking and savings products, ATM transactions, wire transfers, ACH transactions, processing of checks and deposits, and safe deposit boxes, just to name a few. Over the last several years numerous transactions have gone paperless. Many of the regional and larger financial institutions have special departments that only handle specific types of transactions. When I has hired by Crocker Bank back in the mid 70’s as an officer trainee, we spent a year in training going through all departments of the bank before we were ever allowed to handle customers without supervision. Most of the larger financial institutions had similar training programs. What you see today is much different. Many bank employees only have training in their department and are unaware of what goes on in other areas of the bank. Make sure the expert that is engaged has the background and experience for the specific areas that your case involves. Just because he/she was a banker, doesn’t mean they have the expertise your case requires.