The Barnes Firm works with expert witnesses by retaining them early on in the case, and it depends on the type of expert and the type of case you’re working on when you’re going to get them involved. Sometimes it’s very early on, like accident reconstruction, if you need someone to examine the black box, if you will, in a vehicle for that data that’s recorded at the time of the collision, or to inspect a premises where somebody may have been injured so that we get the evidence before it changes. Product liability cases, you want to get that product in and get examined by a witness right away.

There are expert witnesses you may retain later, those that work on economic damages, like life care planners, vocational rehabilitationists, and accountants to do projections of future costs of care because there’s different rates of inflation for medical services and durable medical goods and loss of earnings. And loss of earnings can also include benefit packages, pension, different attributes of your client’s compensation package with their employer. Those all have to be brought in. Typically, liability expert witnesses are retained earlier and economic damage experts are retained a little later in the development of the case. That’s the kind of investment that we make to get the best possible results in our case.