Expert witnesses: The basics

With today's litigious society, more and more lawsuits are being filed. Some of these lawsuits involve very complex technical issues that are increasing the need of technical experts to help the court and jury to understand the issues in non-technical terms. Expert witnesses are compensated well, which encourages technical professionals to agree to be an expert without fully knowing the expectations and challenges facing them ahead. An engineer employed by a company may witness a fatality or a significant incident that has occurred may be called upon to testify. Or a very technically competent engineer may decide to explore becoming an expert witness. The paper will discuss some of the basic expectation and items normally needed to fulfill the requirements for expert witnesses.