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Prosecutors in the Phil Spector murder case filed a motion requesting the defense team be ordered to disclose the fees that Spector’s 13 expert witnesses are being paid before they take the stand in the music producer’s trial.

In papers filed with the court, prosecutors claimed they had previously asked Spector’s attorneys to see “fee schedules, billing schedules, invoices, canceled checks, cash payments, per diem payments, employment contracts and any other documentary or oral evidence of remuneration or compensation of any form made to each of your experts.”

In an email dated March 15, 2007 that prosecutors attached to the motion, Spector’s attorney responded that the prosecution’s request for financial records was “an appropriate one for cross-examination.”

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Expert witness marketing is a conservative investment. It is not an instant gratifier. As marketing expert Jay Levinson states, “Don’t expect marketing to suddenly double your sales. Although this has happened, it is unusual. Recognizing this, you’ll feel good about making a conservative investment in marketing the next year, and the year after that. If you expect more from marketing, chances are you’ll be disappointed. If you expect only that, chances are you’ll be gratified. And successful.” If you want to be successful as an expert witness, will you truly save money by not marketing? You will in the way that stopping your wristwatch saves time.

Your goal in marketing is to consistently educate legal professionals about your qualifications and abilities to position yourself in their mind as the expert witness to contact when a case falls within your expertise. There are an endless number of ways to market your qualifications. The key to expert witness marketing is commitment. Once you have chosen your marketing tactics, stay consistent. Consistency breeds familiarity with attorneys, familiarity breeds confidence in your abilities, and confidence will lead to you being retained in more cases. Do not drop out of the public eye for long periods of time. Remember, attorneys hire expert witnesses based on the cases that come into their office. Just because the attorney does not hire you today does not mean that he or she will not hire you tomorrow.

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Many argue that the Daubert reliability test is important because expert witness testimony is uniquely vulnerable to bias. Those in this camp argue expert witnesses differ from lay witnesses, because experts are retained to advance the cause of one party in an adversarial proceeding.

Courts have consistently reiterated than expert witness’ duty is not the retaining party, but to the court and finder of fact. See Kirk v. Raymark Industries, 61 F.3d 147 (“Experts are not agents of the party hiring them.”) However, some argue that even if experts are not “consciously” biased, they are “unconsciously biased.” As stated by Judge George Jessel: “There is a natural bias to do something serviceable for those who employ you and adequately remunerate you.”

However, even if the expert is biased, does this translate into unreliable testimony? After all, both sides have their own “unconsciously biased” experts (if not consciously biased). Many would argue that the Daubert reliability test will not prevent biased experts from testifying.

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The Illinois House committee is considering Bill HB1896, which would require pretrial hearing on the merits of any expert witness in a civil trial. Though the bill would apply to all civil litigation, the debate in the Illinois House committee will focus on medical experts in malpractice trials.

As stated in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

Doctors blame lawyers for filing what they see as frivolous lawsuits. Lawyers fault insurers, saying the companies raise rates and then blame the civil justice system.

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When one looks at the characteristics of attorneys, it becomes obvious that they do not spend a great deal of time finding the “best” expert witness:

1. Attorneys are middle persons who are controlled by the client. They will advocate the expert witness to the client, who ultimately pays for the services.

2. Attorneys are self-interested, in that they are concerned with how an expert appears to the decision maker (and you should be too).

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Viewing jail visitor lists is a common practice among prosecuting attorneys. But what happens when defense counsel asks an expert witness to visit a prisoner? Should that information be privileged? Courts have disagreed.

In California, one court denied the public defenders’ request to keep prosecutors from knowing which defense experts were visiting two men charged with murder. Judge Nancy Davis Stark stated: “”A prosecutor may not necessarily use (the information), but can keep it in his arsenal.”

However, in another California county, attorneys representing another man charged with murder and rape ifiled a similar motion. Judge John Kennedy ordered the Sheriff’s Department to seal the names of the expert witnesses who visited Kemp, saying they are privileged information.

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Philip Michels, a plaintiff’s lawyer at Michels & Watkins in Westwood, California, has written an excellent article entitled “Finding and effectively using experts in a professional medical negligence case.” The article appears in the April 2007 of the Advocate magazine, published by the Counsumer Attorneys Associations for Southern California.

In the article, Michels suggests one way to select medical experts is to match the defense experts specialty for speciality. As he states in the article:

“[Y]our have to be cautious about allowing the defense to have a specialist in an area that you do not have adequately covered. You can easily drop an expert witness; it is far more difficult to list an additional one.”

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U.S. District Judge Lowell Reed struck down a 1998 U.S. law that makes it a crime for operators of Internet sites to let anyone under 17 have access to sexual material, rebuffing the government’s argument that software filters are ineffective and upholding earlier rulings that the law infringed on free-speech rights. The testimony of software expert witnesses were key to the decision.

The judge agreed with the expert witnesses that filtering software was generally effective. He found that there are many products that allow parents to block sexually explicit material. Furthermore, the products were widely available and often offered free by service providers. He noted that even the government’s own expert witness concluded that software filters are effective, the vast majority blocking at least 95 percent of sexually explicit Web pages.

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West Virginia’s “Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse” plans to ask the legislature to create a “code of ethics” to prevent “misleading expert witness testimony.” As reported in the West Virginia Register-Herald, a survey about expert witnesses was conducted by the the Center for Survey Research at the University of Virginia:

In its study, the center learned most doctors in West Virginia doubt the “expert” testimony if it is given beyond a physician’s specialty or is motivated by money. Sixty-four percent of doctors surveyed rated the overall quality of medical expert witnesses as “poor” or “only fair.” Only 27 percent felt it was “good.” And a mere 9 percent considered it “very good” or “excellent.” The survey found 72 percent had seen or heard testimony by a medical expert they felt was either in error or based on questionable science. All but 5 percent agreed that testimony as supportive diagnoses provided for a fee was tainted. A code of ethics was supported by 96 percent of the physicians interviewed in the University of Virginia research.

It should be noted that most in the survey would likely be facing a medical malpractice expert witness as opposed to working as an expert witness themselves. Also, most of the concerns of the doctors surveyed are addressed by the Daubert reliability test.

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Several medical expert witnesses and psychology experts are again expected to testify in the retrial of Daniel Ramsey of Keokuk, Iowa. His retrial began on Monday, April 2, 2007 in Lewistown, Iowa for the July 8, 1996, slayings of two girls. Ramsey was 18 when he was accused of the slayings, and 19 when he was first convicted and sentenced to death in 1997 by a Knox County jury. Ramsey’s conviction was overturned three years later, and it has taken seven years to start a new trial. The reasoning was that the insanity defense used in his first trial was later ruled unconstitutional. This will be the centerpiece of the expert witness testimony.