by

Patents expert witnesses may opine on patent infringement, software patents, invention patents, and more. In the news this week, MobileMedia Ideas LLC won a patent case against Apple Inc. in the Wilmington, Delaware District Court. The jury decided that Apple infringed on patents for electronics in handheld devices.

The MobileMedia website states:

MobileMedia Ideas is the patent portfolio licensor of inventions adopted by manufacturers of smart phones, mobile phones and other portable devices including personal computers, laptops, netbooks, personal media players, e-book readers, cameras and hand-held game consoles.

Continue reading

by

In Four Reasons Why The Location Of A Medical Expert Witness Is Becoming Less Important, Diane Manders of Mednick Associates writes:

The physical location of a medical expert witness, while in no way related to the competency of the witness, has always been a concern of attorneys litigating medical, health, toxic tort or injury cases. Conventional wisdom says the closer the expert is to the venue of a trial, the higher credibility they will have with a jury. Proximity, like it or not, tends to breed confidence and eliminates the question on why an attorney had to “go to the other side of the country” to prove his/her case.

However, as the world has grown smaller so has the potential stigma of an out of state or out of region medical expert witness.

Continue reading

by

In BECOMING AN EXPERT WITNESS & DEVELOPING YOUR CURRICULUM VITA OR RÉSUMÉ, Hallie Bongar White & Jane Larrington of the The Southwest Center For Law And Policy offer a template for Writing A Curriculum Vita or Résumé. The Southwest Center For Law And Policy is a non-profit organization providing legal training and technical assistance for tribal law enforcement, courts, prosecutors, community health care professionals, victim advocates, social services, and community members. SWCLAP hosts the National Tribal Trial College.

Ms. White is an attorney and Executive Director of the Southwest Center for Law and Policy. Ms. Larrington is a reference librarian at the Thomas Jefferson School of Law and a staff attorney at the Southwest Center for Law and Policy.

Read more: http://www.swclap.org/pdfs/EXPERTWITNESS.pdf

by

Real estate appraisal expert witnesses may write reports and testify on commercial appraisals, fair market value, and residential real estate appraisal.

On its website, The Appraisal Institute offers Appraiser News Online, the Appraisal Institute’s free weekly e-newsletter that provides ongoing coverage of industry trends, legislative issues and regulatory developments affecting appraisers. The Appraisal Institute is a leader in residential and commercial real estate appraisal education. Webinars include Appraising Distressed Commercial Real Estate: Here We Go Again.

More info: http://www.appraisalinstitute.org/store/c-23-webinar-recordings.aspx

by

In Help! My New House Is Falling Down, architect Peter Lattey writes that uncovering construction defects requires an expert to discover the cause of damage.

A homeowner walks into your office and says “My new house is falling apart and I want to sue the bum that built it.”

As a smart lawyer, you quickly decide that this may be your next money making case and you decide to find out what the case is all about. Being a prudent person, you do a bit of research before you take on the case. Just as an emergency room doctor does a triage on new cases to decide how each new patient is to be treated, a smart lawyer needs to do the same on new construction defect cases.

Continue reading

by

In Cross-Examination of Experts: Where to Start, Richard A. Cook, Esq., offers a list of areas to review including Learned Treatises, Private Investigators, and more. Mr. Cook, member of the Indianapolis law firm Yosha Cook Shartzer & Tisch, is a former Assistant U. S. Attorney for the Northern District of Indiana. He writes as a guest blogger for http://theparalegalsociety.wordpress.com.

by

In The forensic expert witness-An issue of competency, Forensic Science International writes:

Scientists submitting expert opinions within the legal system are expected to be knowledgeable in the forensic aspects of their particular science, as well as to be ethical and unbiased.

Scientists are seldom able to decline a request to provide an expert opinion in their field, even when their forensic expertise is minimal. The competence of scientists providing expert opinions in forensic cases is reviewed here. Three examples of the perils of uninformed “expertise” in forensic biology, medicine and anthropology are presented.

Continue reading

by

In Witness Competency, Bonnie Sudderth, Judge of the 352nd District Court of Tarrant County, TX, writes:

Long before Robinson and Daubert subjected expert witnesses to a judicial pre-screening process, Texas judges were acting as gate-keepers as to fact witnesses on the basis of competency. In fact, legal history in Texas is replete with many grounds to exclude witnesses due to incompetency, most of which have long-since been abandoned or repealed, such as religion, race and criminal convictions. Two exclusionary grounds remain, however, in the current rules of evidence – witnesses who are mentally incompetent and children.

Read more: http://judgebonniesudderth.wordpress.com

by

Quebec Justice Brian Riordan agreed to hear the testimony of Stanford University’s Robert Proctor in the class action case against Imperial Tobacco Canada Ltd., Rothmans, Benson & Hedges, and JTI-Macdonald. The tobacco expert witness published Tobacco and the Global Lung Cancer Epidemic in 2001 and has previously testified in 30 trials. Dr. Proctor testified for plaintiffs in the $27B case.