Friday, November 2, 2007

October 18, 2007

Hire the Frickin’ Expert

If a case is going to require expert testimony, or even if the other side is going to put an expert witness (or, say, six expert witnesses) on the stand to testify about a critical aspect of the case, it’s going to be a good idea to hire an expert witness. In this arson case, a lawyer did not hire an expert witness to rebut arson allegations against his client or to help him cross examine the state’s expert witness. He just poked around the site of the fire and decided to go along with the state’s determination that the fire in question had been set intentionally.

His reward? Public statements in federal courts that his performance as an attorney had been “deficient.” That’s like getting a gold star, except the complete opposite.

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