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Cryptocurrency
Here at Orion Expert Network (OEN), we like to stay on the cutting edge of legal practice, and one of our most exciting emerging areas today is in cryptocurrency. As you have certainly seen in the headlines, cryptocurrency, such as Bitcoin, can be used online to buy goods and services; but, unlike traditional currency, it uses a security system called Blockchain, which makes it extremely difficult to counterfeit or double-spend. Thus, cryptocurrency is a more secure form of payment for the internet era.
However, because of its nascency, one of the most difficult aspects of a cryptocurrency case will be helping the judge and jury to understand what the cryptocurrency is, how it works, and how its complexities shape the facts and potential outcome of the case.
While your typical jury will have no difficulty understanding the value of a good-old-fashioned American dollar, it will probably take a good expert witness to explain what exactly cryptocurrency is, how it works, and how various currency schemes work. This will need to be related back to the specifics of the case, in order to detail how whichever injury is alleged to have occurred, occurred.
While there is certainly nothing illegal about the use of Bitcoin in general, cryptocurrency can be used as a part of a scam, such as embezzlement, or fraud, in the selling of fake or nonexistent cryptocurrency. Such bad faith dealers may be exceptionally good at covering their online tracks – which could necessitate expert witnesses with a broader mandate than cryptocurrency, such as those who are able to track and analyze online movements and security schemes that may imply fraud or bad dealing.
When OEN searches for an expert witness for your cryptocurrency case, we won’t simply be searching for an expert witness who understands Bitcoin. We’ll find one who not only knows all there is to know about online currencies, but who can also sit, calmly, under cross-examination and explain to a jury of laypeople how it works, and how it can be abused.
News clips
Cryptocurrency and Divorce – Mediate
https://www.mediate.com/articles/french-cryptocurrency.cfm
Washington debates regulating cryptocurrency industry – Yahoo! News
https://news.yahoo.com/washington-debates-regulating-cryptocurrency-industry-003724079.html
Bitcoin traders shouldn’t worry about Elon Musk: expert – Yahoo! Money
https://money.yahoo.com/video/bitcoin-traders-shouldn-t-worry-133052481.html
Patent
Attorneys typically approach patent and intellectual property litigation with no illusions about the complexities of the case in front of them. In fact, due to the highly-specialized, technical aspects of most patent and intellectual property cases, most lawyers in these practice areas have become highly specialized themselves, oftentimes coming from an engineering or design background before beginning law school.
Take a look at the resume of a typical patent/intellectual property Big Law partner, and you’ll likely see a stint at a high-profile engineering firm before their time at law school. Most big law firms that feature patent/intellectual property as a practice area recruit heavily from such engineering firms, and guide candidates for hire throughout their experience of law school, knowing that those whose backgrounds are heavy on STEM and lighter on the liberal arts oftentimes find the particular rigors of law school challenging.
And then there is the typical attorney. It goes without saying that lawyers have a reputation for being bad at math — or, at the very least, math-averse. The reason many attorneys wound up in law school instead of medical school is that, despite their intelligence, they didn’t relish doing all of those equations in calculus or organic chemistry or any of the other areas more STEM-friendly patent and intellectual property attorneys might be familiar with.
So, considering the intricately technical nature of patent and intellectual property cases, whether you’re a specialized patent/intellectual property lawyer yourself, or more of a straight-down-the-lines litigator, you’re going to need the help of some expert witnesses in putting together and making your case to judge and jury.
Patent and intellectual property cases hinge on all sorts of questions, among them: copyright infringement, royalties, IP rights, trademark, fair use, and patent licensing. Experts in this field can help you answer your questions and make your case in any number of areas, including: reverse engineering, damage assessment and quantification (including lost profits, reasonable royalties, price erosion, unjust enrichment, and consequential impacts). Their testimony can be wide-ranging and relate to issues such as: substantial similarity, access to original work, trade secrets and confidential information, software copyrights and royalties, authors and inventors, IP holders and related matters.
Other areas where patent and intellectual property expert witnesses may testify are IP ownership vis-a-vis freelancers, independent contractor and employee creator-inventor issues, works made-for-hire, full IP ownership versus a limited license to use, service marks and trademarks, proprietary knowledge, IP portfolio management, intellectual property licensing, enforcement of IP rights, industrial design and patents.
With all of the complexities involved in patent and IP litigation, why add finding the right expert witnesses to your to-do list when there is a proven pro to do it for you? Orion Expert Network (OEN) will do everything you don’t want to, including going through resumes and past track records of witnesses, ensuring they’re up-to-snuff on the material through the interview process, and preparing them for the challenges of taking the stand.
You’ve got more than enough to do, making sense of all the numbers, calculations and claims in your case — let the ‘expert’ experts do this part of things for you. Call OEN today for a consultation.
Patent/IP in the news
Patent fight pits rich against poor in vacciner race – Politico
Amazon’s Judging of IP Claims Tested in Seller Lawsuits – Bloomberg Law
https://news.bloomberglaw.com/ip-law/amazons-judging-of-ip-disputes-questioned-in-sellers-lawsuits
A Plea for Clarity and a New Approach on Section 101 – IP Watchdog
https://www.ipwatchdog.com/2020/01/04/plea-clarity-new-approach-section-101-2020/id=117537/
Product Liability
There are a lot of different products out there. That’s why if you find your firm involved in products liability litigation, you may find yourself on the phone a lot, trying to locate expert witnesses in lots of niche areas as you build your case. For in a products liability case, there will be an expert witness to match every type of product you’ll find out there – big, small, simple, complex, regulated to the hilt, or brand new. Products range from small and light to heavy machinery, and so too do the quality, caliber, and cost of expert witnesses, which is why you’ll want Orion Expert Network (OEN)’s assistance finding them for your case.
The types of expert witnesses hired by OEN for products liability cases have decades of experience not only in the design and manufacture of consumer products, but also in the commercial and industrial equipment that make these products. Our experts will consider everything from human error to warning and safety instructions, and anything from consumer products and exercise equipment to industrial machinery and equipment in restaurants and hotels.
Such experts include design engineers, as well as experts who can compare products against state and government standards such as OSHA, to ensure that they are up-to-snuff. And don’t you worry – for every product there is a niche expert or two out there who will understand all of the important angles, from design to marketing and sales, so that each aspect of your case is covered in full. That is the value that OEN adds to your case.
The five questions that OEN asks when hiring a product liability expert are: what kind of experts do we need? What is the expert’s experience with the product and/ or product design? Will he or she be able to testify to an alternative design or product warning? What is the expert’s deposition history? And does he or she hold up well under difficult questioning?
Learn about the product, and leave the expert witness search to us.
News clips
Court reinstates medical devices products liability suit – Business Insurance
3M’s Expert Nixed From Earplug MDL Bellwether Case – Law360
https://www.law360.com/health/articles/1383698/3m-s-expert-nixed-from-earplug-mdl-bellwether-case
Pharmacist Ignores “Hard Stop” In Computer – PharmacyTimes
https://www.pharmacytimes.com/view/pharmacist-ignores-hard-stop-in-computer
Antitrust
When your firm has signed onto an antitrust case, there are likely myriad areas of the law where you’ll need to get yourself up-to-speed — business, corporate, and labor law among them.
Depending on the type of business you’re dealing with, you will need expert witnesses who can both debrief your attorneys and speak to judge and jury in a way that is factual, clear, and convincing, on any number of topics, including: business operations, securities and investments, hedge funds, econometrics, stocks, torts, life-cycle cost analysis, business disputes, damages (as well as damage analysis and calculation), business valuation, fair market value, tax shelters, executive compensation, lost wages, intellectual property, or patent infringement, among many other areas of the law.
This is in addition to the fact that many antitrust cases require class certification, a process that may require additional expert witnesses, as well. And, of course, if class certification is not achieved, that could mean the end of your case.
When you pile on top of all of this the Daubert and Frye standards for admission of expert witnesses in federal and state courts, what you have are hours and hours of additional work researching, reviewing, interviewing, and analyzing expert witnesses on top of the ordinary work of document review, depositions, drafting briefs, jury selection, and all the rest of the parts of putting together a solid case for your client.
So why not trust the pros at Orion Expert Network to do all of this extra work for you? We have a proven track record and a national reach, and are looking out for all the right things so that you don’t have to.
Once you’ve determined the fundamental facts and questions present in your case, OEN will find the best expert witnesses for you, taking into account many things, including the expert’s specialty, past track record in litigation as a witness, interpersonal skills and ability to communicate ideas clearly, location, and yes, fees.
When you take on an antitrust case, you can be certain that the opposing parties in the case — and there could very well be more than one very powerful, well-funded and well-prepared adversary to face — will be bringing in the big guns. And perhaps hiring up many of the same expert witnesses that you might like to secure for your side.
Not many law firms, even in BigLaw, have the standing internal resources to deal with all of the moving parts of antitrust litigation with the accuracy, speed, and experience needed to prevail. If you hire OEN, we’ll go into overdrive for you, locating the exact expert witnesses needed for the details of your case, and helping you ensure they’re up-to-speed and ready to perform at the level they’ll need to to bring your case home.
Call OEN today for a consultation.
Antitrust in the news
How consultants will sway the outcome of the Epic v. Apple case – Quartz
https://qz.com/2012568/how-consultants-will-sway-the-outcome-of-the-epic-v-apple-case/
Apple’s Fortnite Antitrust Trial Ends With Pointed Questions and a Toast to Popeye’s – The New York Times
The Apple-Epic antitrust case was a spectator sport (audio) – Marketplace
The Apple-Epic antitrust case was a spectator sport
Automotive & Aviation
America is a country of cars. Thus, as a litigator at a medium- or big-sized law firm, at one point in your career you are likely to take on a case dealing with a car accident.
This could be a case as simple as a hit-and-run resulting in an injury to one or more parties, or it could be a deadly pileup involving multiple fatalities. In these instances, human error — such as driving too fast or under the influence — could be to blame. Or perhaps it was merely the conditions on the road that day that caused what happened.
Then there are equipment failures involving injury or death. Sometimes, these are isolated incidents; sometimes, there is a design flaw in the car that necessitates a class-action suit, or perhaps leading to a recall of the specific make and model of the vehicle.
As simple as what happened may seem, you’re still going to need a bevy of expert witnesses on your side to make your case to the court.
In their defense, car manufacturers will try to show the importance of human error in the accident — meaning medical experts who can speak to the driver’s poor vision, or prove that he or she was under the influence. They will hire speed experts to attempt to show that the driver was going too fast. You get the picture.
As a plaintiff, you’ll need medical experts of your own to elucidate the injuries suffered; automotive and mechanical experts to explain the problems with the design and building of the car, and how these were the proximate cause of the accident; labor and employment experts to calculate lost wages and pain and suffering for the purposes of damages; et cetera.
Like any type of case, your run-of-the-mill automotive — or, on a larger scale, aviation-related — accident case will nevertheless require over a dozen expert witnesses in order to build an effective case for your client. On top of jury selection, depositions, legal research, wrangling a fact pattern, writing a brief, and practicing oral arguments, do you really want your firm bogged down in finding a bunch of expert witnesses?
Let Orion Expert Network (OEN) do that work for you. We’ll sift through resumes, conduct interviews, and prep experts to appear at trial, so you don’t have to. We’ll do the work the same way you would, except you won’t have to worry about it.
OEN: The Expert Experts.
Automotive & Aviation in the news
Safety Culture Helps Fleets Guard Against Lawsuits, Experts Say – Transport News
https://www.ttnews.com/articles/safety-culture-helps-fleets-guard-against-lawsuits-experts-say
Expert says claim driver fainted before fatal collision is ‘extremely unlikely’ – WalesOnline
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/nigel-davies-bridgend-court-trial-20693860
Aviation expert analyzes damage to plane after midair collision – KDVR
Aviation expert analyzes damage to plane after midair collision
Construction
If you have a client involved in construction litigation, their case can easily touch on multiple areas of the law – with many construction cases involving property, torts, and contract law, at a bare minimum. For example, property law might come into effect if a local zoning board were to deny permits necessary to complete the work; torts would come into play in the event of an accident, such as a wrongful death due to errors on-site; contract law would be touched upon in the event of a dispute about the cost of the work or performance under the contract.
Furthermore, construction litigation often features multiple parties – condominium tenants suing over airborne toxic mold, a homeowner suing a subcontractor over bathroom repairs, a subcontractor filing a lien against property after not being paid, a state government trying to overrule a local zoning ordinance in order to build a hospital. Because these cases involve so many competing interests, litigation can become complex and bogged down in minor issues that only an expert witness with the proper qualifications will be able to help answer.
In a construction case, such witnesses will be able to answer questions about specific elements of the law and the facts of the case, such as unfair trade practices: in RCDI Const. v. Spaceplan/Architecture, for example, architecture consultants were accused of unfairly urging a client to terminate a contract with builders after his property became flooded; the expert witness helped the court determine that a standard of care was not broken, as the architects were seeking to prevent the buildup of mold and structural damage.
Expert witnesses in construction cases should also be able to answer the court’s questions about things such as complex engineering processes, like destructive testing, which breaks down a material in order to determine whether it is the proper substance for the job.
Expert witnesses can also come in handy for more mundane issues such as assessing the accuracy of estimates and the necessity of construction delays.
Such experts can range from engineers and architects to subcontractors, materials scientists to zoning experts and the like. They answer questions about structural engineering, toxic mold, design evaluations, forensic investigations, prince discrepancies, and all manner of other topics.
News clips
Federal Circuit: If it’s Not Legit, You Can’t Admit – The National Law Review
https://www.natlawreview.com/article/if-it-s-not-legit-you-can-t-admit
Maryland Adopts Daubert Standard for Expert Testimony – The National Law Review
Concurrent expert evidence in a post-pandemic world – Lexology
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=2e1ae560-0e0e-4c31-a2b4-2a2af3153418
E-Cigarette and Vaping Litigation
Prior to the start of the pandemic, one of the biggest public health issues facing the United States was the proliferation of e-cigarette and vaping devices, which have been found to lead to addiction issues, including among teens, health hazards such as lung damage, and even death.
At the same time, e-cigarettes and their newly-legal marijuana-infused cousins, marijuana vape pens, which allow users to inhale THC vapors for a quick and easy high, are an important and emergent sector of our economy, generating billions in revenue and spurring on the creation of thousands of small- and medium-sized businesses.
So, it should come as no surprise that e-cigarettes and their brethren are a rapidly emerging front in the litigation arena, with a multitude of lawsuits starting up in a number of jurisdictions related to so-called reduced risk nicotine products such as smokeless tobacco, heated tobacco, and tobacco-free nicotine products. A number of stakeholders are involved in these cases, from growers, manufacturers, and distributors to smokers, ex-smokers, public health, and governmental organizations.
Indeed, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently announced that it was moving up the deadline for PMTAs, or pre-market tobacco applications, for the makers and importers of these products, to in advance of its previous 2022 deadline. In addition, Congress has stepped up its scrutiny of the industry, with the House Oversight Committee recently holding two-day hearings on whether or not Juul Labs has played a role in the alleged youth nicotine epidemic.
Cases in this industry include a personal injury suit against Juul Labs, the San Francisco-based maker of the now-famous Juul vapes, where a man alleges that his addiction to its product caused him to suffer a massive stroke. Juul is also being sued by a number of school districts, who allege its products and practices have caused their students to become addicted to e-cigarettes. In addition, there are a number of class-action lawsuits in the works, including three in the State of Illinois alone.
A racketeering suit has been filed against Juul, as well, and many firms now have dedicated websites for recruiting plaintiffs.
If your firm has signed on to e-cigarette or vaping litigation, you will find yourself in need of expert witnesses who can speak to the specific elements and adverse health effects of these products. Such experts could include addiction and public health experts; experts on nicotine, chemistry, and epidemiology; medical experts (specifically, experts on neurovascular issues, neurology, pulmonology, pathology, and medical toxicology, among others); materials science experts (particularly in matters relating to lithium batteries); patent and design experts; statistical experts; marketing and advertising experts; and ex-FDA experts.
With all of the ordinary demands of litigation also on your plate, do you really have the time to sift through resumes, conduct interviews, and do the rest of your due diligence to find expert witnesses who can not only consult on your case, but also help make your case effectively in the courtroom? It’s not an easy thing for a busy lawyer to contemplate.
That’s why you’ve come to the right place. Contact Orion Expert Network (OEN) today for a free consultation. Don’t worry; hire OEN — the expert experts.
E-Cigarettes/vaping in the news
How Juul Got Vaporized – TIME
https://time.com/6048234/juul-downfall/
Juul should face fines for marketing to minors, NC judge says – Raleigh News & Observer
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/business/article251468028.html
Vaping Links to Covid Risk Are Becoming Clear – The New York Times
Economic and Damages
There have been and continue to be plenty of great television shows about the legal profession. From Night Court and CSI to Law & Order and L.A Law, most Americans know that the law is a tough profession, and that litigation – especially when thousands, millions, or even billions of dollars are involved – is a cutthroat, knock-down, drag-out business.
While real-life legal battles (especially within the decorum of a courtroom) are often not played with as great a dramatic flair as Marishka Haritgay may do, the stakes are much higher, and the challenges just as tough.
A more recent legal thriller – the FX show Damages, starring Glenn Close as a brilliant and ruthless attorney – goes a long way to bridging the divide between providing entertaining television and showing the true costs of economic litigation and all of the costs and sacrifices that go into it.
Fans of this show know that litigators rely heavily on economic and financial expert witnesses in their work. So, whether you work alongside the fictional Patty Hewes at Hewes and Associates in New York City, or you’re a real, less high-profile litigator, we thought we’d give you a brief breakdown of the types of issues you may face and the related experts you may need in your economic damages case.
Cases involving illegal stock trades or insider trading may call for an expert on financial markets. A woman suing for equal pay for equal work might require an earning capacity expert on your case as a witness, in order to explain the proper compensation level for the work that she does. Price-gauging cases may necessitate experts on pricing and probability.
It goes on and on. Depending on the topic of your case, you could need experts in areas such as: financial modeling, public finance, econometrics, business valuation, economic impact, data analysis, property valuation, loss of earnings (these experts are needed in most accident litigation), macroeconomics, pensions, or forecasting.
If your firm is involved in any of the following types of economic damages litigation, your expert witness needs will be substantial: fraud, unfair termination of employment, wrongful medical expenses, consumer disputes, auditing, intellectual property, antitrust, royalties, trademarks, licensing, contracts, expenses of an accident, loss of wages due to an absence from work. And many more!
We have a vast network of experts whom we trust and vet thoroughly to ensure they’re the best match for the specifics of your case, and up to helping you make your best case in the courtroom.
So call OEN today to get started with your expert witness search process. You’ve got plenty of other work to do, so if you’re going to get all of it done and still have time to kick back and binge a season of Boston Legal on a Sunday night, you’re going to need our help. And with OEN, you don’t have to worry. We’ll get the work done with the same Monday-morning gusto you’ll have after your night of rest and excellent television.
News
Big jury verdicts reflect significant shifts in the US patent landscape, damages experts claim – iam-Media
UBS Hit With $4.8 Million Arb Award in Puerto Rico Bond Case – ADVISORHUB
https://www.advisorhub.com/ubs-hit-with-4-8-million-arb-award-in-puerto-rico-bond-case/
CVS Drug Buyers Demand $100M As Overcharge Trial Opens – Law360
https://www.law360.com/trials/articles/1392022/cvs-drug-buyers-demand-100m-as-overcharge-trial-opens
Engineering
As we have noted before on the Orion Expert Network (OEN) blog, we love lawyers – but we know that not many of you are big fans of math or science (eat your heart out, med school!). Which means that if your firm becomes involved in engineering litigation, you may find yourself in need of expert witnesses, both to help you understand the fact pattern and dynamics of your case, and to make a convincing case before the judge and jury.
Engineering is essentially using math and science for problem-solving. Engineers build everything we use today. This ranges from skyscrapers and cars to microchips and smartphones and everything else man-made. Specifically, engineers design, evaluate, develop, test, modify, install, inspect, and maintain a wide number of different products and systems.
Since you’re on the OEN blog, you know what that means! For every different type of engineering case, you’ll need a different type of expert witness to guide and assist you.
Generally there are six categories of engineers – chemical, civil, electrical, mechanical, management, and geotechnical. A case involving a collapsed tunnel would necessitate a civil engineer to determine whether or not the tunnel was designed properly, whereas a case involving a fire might necessitate an electrical engineer to determine whether things were wired properly. You get the drift.
When dealing with expert witnesses from the STEM fields – science, technology, engineering, and math – it is of the utmost importance that you find an expert witness who will be comfortable and competent explaining very complex and hard-to-understand topics to a courtroom. If your engineer expert witness is a brilliant leader in his field, but is totally unable to string a human-sounding sentence together, you might not get very far with him.
Remember – it’s not only important that your expert understands things and that you understand things. At the end of the day, you’ve also got to make these oftentimes mind-numbingly boring and highly detailed areas of knowledge accessible to the judge or jurors – who will have done almost none of the background reading and research you have done – who decide your case.
And that is where OEN comes in. We know that hiring an expert witness isn’t as complicated as the principles of mechanical engineering might be, but it is of the utmost importance to the success of your case. Has the engineer appeared before a courtroom before? For civil engineers – who are often involved in large public works projects – is local credibility going to be important to jurors? Does the engineer have a new take on an issue that might make your case more effective? OEN will ask all of these questions, and consider all these issues, so that you can focus on the facts of your case.
Call OEN today and engineer your way out of at least one litigation headache.
News
Expert witness fees add nearly $200k to cost of downtown library lawsuit – Baton Rouge Business Report
Engineer Blames Fertility Clinic for Tank Failure in Frozen Eggs Trial – Courthouse News Service
Tim Cook to be Apple’s star witness Friday as antitrust trial wraps up – MarketWatch
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/apple-v-epic-tim-cook-to-testify-friday-11621529323
FINRA & ERISA
Here at Orion Expert Network (OEN), it’s time for some Acronym Olympics!
As a practicing attorney, you encounter acronyms all of the time in your work, and so you know the deal by now: by and large, acronyms create a quick, handy way of addressing the large, complicated topics and organizations you encounter during the course of practice.
And while acronyms simplify conversations and brief-writing just a bit, one thing the funny-sounding new words they create don’t do is simplify the topics and areas of knowledge you will need to familiarize yourself with and master in order to prevail at trial.
Right now, let’s slurp two of these funny words out of our alphabet soup: FINRA and ERISA. What are they, and how might they affect your legal practice?
FINRA refers to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. FINRA is an independent, nongovernmental organization that both writes and enforces the rules governing registered brokers and broker-dealer firms in the United States. A self-regulatory organization created in 2007 out of the remnants of antecedent organizations, its stated mission is to “safeguard the investing public against fraud and bad practices.”
FINRA, a large organization with almost 20 offices and nearly 3,000 employees, has the power to regulate and take disciplinary actions against firms, including massive fines and trading bans. It also has the power to refer cases of insider trading and other malfeasance to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for criminal prosecution, meaning it could be the last stop for your client before serious criminal liability is a possibility.
In a similar, but governmental realm, is ERISA. ERISA refers to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, which sets minimum standards for voluntary retirement and health plans in the private industry in order to provide protection to the individuals who pay into these plans.
ERISA touches a myriad of health care and investment issues, including those that are relatively new, such as changes to the healthcare industry wrought by the Affordable Care Act.
So, there are your acronyms, explained. As you might imagine, a lawsuit involving either FINRA or ERISA might necessitate any number of expert witnesses, from those who are intimately familiar with FINRA proceedings to experts in the healthcare field.
Call OEN today for help taking care of your FINRA and ERISA expert witness needs.
FINRA and ERISA in the news
New DOL fiduciary ‘rule’ unshackles broker-dealers to pursue commissions, declaring brokers ERISA fiduciaries by making simple disclosures – RIABiz
SEC Using ‘Best Interest’ as a Marketing Slogan: Phyllis Borzi – ThinkAdvisor
https://www.thinkadvisor.com/2019/03/18/sec-using-best-interest-as-a-marketing-slogan-phyllis-borzi/
UBS to Pay $4.8M Over Puerto Rican Bonds – ThinkAdvisor
https://www.thinkadvisor.com/2021/05/17/ubs-to-pay-4-8m-over-puerto-rican-bonds/
Insurance Recovery
There are very few documents more complex and idiosyncratic than insurance policies, and so, if your firm is involved in insurance recovery litigation, then you are probably in search of a few good expert witnesses to not only help you sort through the various facts and timelines of your case, but also just to help you make sense of some of the language contained within the insurance policy itself. Yes, it’s true – even three years of law school and all the education that came before that didn’t prepare you to read an insurance policy without a little hand-holding from someone who deals with them every single day.
Insurance recovery expert witnesses are skilled at interpreting the liabilities and risks contained within an insurance policy. The most important thing to remember in an insurance recovery case is that although there are certain forms and standards that basic types of insurance policies follow – property insurance, automobile insurance, life insurance, engineering insurance, etc. – each policy will have its own quirks and details, depending on the specifics of the item and the reasons for which it was insured.
As anyone who has been involved in insurance recovery litigation knows, the details of these cases are legion – premiums, underwriting, risk management, brokerage, premises liability, etc. Insurance recovery experts will be familiar not only with the specifics of different types of insurance contracts, such as business interruption, ocean marine, general liability, etc., but also with the policies and procedures that must be followed in advance of obtaining such insurance, in order to meet all of the legal and procedural requirements.
Insurance recovery cases involve a lot of issues and a heck of a lot of moving parts. If you would rather not add the research and interview time necessary to find the just-right expert witnesses for your insurance recovery case, then contact Orion Expert Network (OEN) and we will get right on it, and find you the experts you need to bring home the case for your clients.
News clips
How to deal with insurance companies after an accident – Yahoo! News
https://news.yahoo.com/deal-insurance-companies-accident-192707111.html
Rare Covid-19 Vaccine and Treatment Injury Victims Look to U.S. Fund – Insurance Journal
https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2021/05/04/612516.htm
Allstate accused of purposefully driving up litigation costs on over 10,000 firms – PropertyCasualty360
https://www.propertycasualty360.com/2021/01/20/allstate-accused-of-purposely-driving-up-litigation-costs-414-195143/?slreturn=20210414092921
Construction
If you have a client involved in construction litigation, their case can easily touch on multiple areas of the law – with many construction cases involving property, torts, and contract law, at a bare minimum. For example, property law might come into effect if a local zoning board were to deny permits necessary to complete the work; torts would come into play in the event of an accident, such as a wrongful death due to errors on-site; contract law would be touched upon in the event of a dispute about the cost of the work or performance under the contract.
Furthermore, construction litigation often features multiple parties – condominium tenants suing over airborne toxic mold, a homeowner suing a subcontractor over bathroom repairs, a subcontractor filing a lien against property after not being paid, a state government trying to overrule a local zoning ordinance in order to build a hospital. Because these cases involve so many competing interests, litigation can become complex and bogged down in minor issues that only an expert witness with the proper qualifications will be able to help answer.
In a construction case, such witnesses will be able to answer questions about specific elements of the law and the facts of the case, such as unfair trade practices: in RCDI Const. v. Spaceplan/Architecture, for example, architecture consultants were accused of unfairly urging a client to terminate a contract with builders after his property became flooded; the expert witness helped the court determine that a standard of care was not broken, as the architects were seeking to prevent the buildup of mold and structural damage.
Expert witnesses in construction cases should also be able to answer the court’s questions about things such as complex engineering processes, like destructive testing, which breaks down a material in order to determine whether it is the proper substance for the job.
Expert witnesses can also come in handy for more mundane issues such as assessing the accuracy of estimates and the necessity of construction delays.
Such experts can range from engineers and architects to subcontractors, materials scientists to zoning experts and the like. They answer questions about structural engineering, toxic mold, design evaluations, forensic investigations, prince discrepancies, and all manner of other topics.
News clips
Federal Circuit: If it’s Not Legit, You Can’t Admit – The National Law Review
https://www.natlawreview.com/article/if-it-s-not-legit-you-can-t-admit
Maryland Adopts Daubert Standard for Expert Testimony – The National Law Review
Concurrent expert evidence in a post-pandemic world – Lexology
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=2e1ae560-0e0e-4c31-a2b4-2a2af3153418
Labor & Employment
The past year has been a difficult one for the American worker, with hundreds of thousands sent home or laid off due to the economic contractions caused by the spread and subsequent containment of the Covid-19 virus. And now, with the vaccine being distributed and many Americans going back to work – including jurors going back to the countrooms – many of the issues that were kicked up in the American workplace by Covid are finding their way to trial, raising injuries and liabilities related to working or not working in the midst of a global pandemic.
Perhaps you are representing a client who faced termination after refusing to return to work due to Covid-19, only to have relented, returned to work, and ended up with the virus and its related issues. Or maybe you are dealing with an essential worker who claims that safety precautions onsite have not been met, or that their employer’s negligence has exposed them to undue risk. Perhaps your client is suing for the right to return to work, having exhausted all unemployment benefits and other funding they were entitled to as a result of the pandemic.
Or maybe you are representing a client whose health insurance coverage has failed to meet the challenges and eventualities of working under the conditions of Covid-19, despite changes in the law and policy designed to protect them. Naturally, any of these cases would involve lots of different types of expert witnesses, from medical and financial experts, to public health experts, insurance experts, and the like. Let us here at Orion Expert Network (OEN) focus on the details of locating these experts, while you focus on the facts of your case.
Of course, Covid-19 isn’t the only reason for an employment law case to go to trial – there are plenty of other more timeless, mundane reasons for a case of this type to move, including personal injury, union movements, and the like. No matter what the underlying issue, OEN has got you. Give us a call today.
News clips
Emotional Distress Damages in Employment Discrimination Cases – National Law Review
Doctor Not Liable for Holding Newborn by Neck, Court Agrees – Law360
https://www.law360.com/articles/1361228/doctor-not-liable-for-holding-newborn-by-neck-court-agrees
Appeals Court Axes Novel Loyalty Duty for Experts – Law360
https://www.law360.com/articles/1343351/appeals-court-axes-novel-loyalty-duty-for-experts
Personal Injury
If you or your law firm are representing a client in a personal injury case, you may find yourself on the lookout for some expert witnesses. There are a variety of different types of expert witnesses that may serve on a personal injury case, some of whom deal more on the financial side of things and some of whom deal more on the medical side of things.
Any number of medical professionals, including physician assistants, technicians, nurses, doctors, and surgeons, could be called to serve on a personal injury case. These experts would give their opinions about a party’s injuries, and how these injuries would affect a victim’s life on a daily basis. If you were injured during a surgical procedure, for example, a surgeon who performs the same procedures as your doctor might be brought in to comment on the wisdom of the choices made by the performing doctor.
Some personal injury cases touch upon or even hinge upon mental health issues, so another type of expert commonly called during such cases is a mental health professional, such as a psychiatrist. Such a professional would be in to discuss the mental health aspects of an injury – such as the resultant depression, anxiety, and the like.
Finally, a financial professional might be called in to discuss the financial costs of an injury, such as the loss of potential future income. This type of testimony can be crucial to any jury award to a plaintiff resulting from an injury – an estimation of what exactly the injury has cost the plaintiff is needed for an accurate and fair outcome to be reached in the case.
News clips
Appeals from Limine Orders: Part II – New York Law Journal
https://www.law.com/newyorklawjournal/2021/04/23/appeals-from-in-limine-orders-part-ii/
The Case for Non-Retained Expert Witnesses – JDSupra
https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/the-case-for-non-retained-expert-5171784/
Failure to Fully Disclose Expert Opinions Results in Summary Judgment – JDSupra
https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/failure-to-fully-disclose-expert-2857204/
Medical & Medical Devices
Lawsuits surrounding medicine and medical devices fill up plenty of docket space around the United States every year. Essentially, these are product liability cases involving pharmaceuticals or devices, such as LASIK surgical machines, that are used in the medical profession.
These cases can present a special challenge for the lawyers and law firms who take them on. With millions and sometimes even billions of dollars, as well as their companies’ and products’ reputations on the line, the pharmaceutical companies and device manufacturers who are the targets of these lawsuits and class actions have strong incentives to put up a rigorous defense.
These lawsuits are filed over many different issues – but mostly, they’re launched because the product or medicine either failed to work or caused the user significant harm. So they require expert witnesses who can speak with authority and clarity on medical issues – doctors and specialists – as well as the engineers, chemists, and other professionals, who can speak to the design and manufacture of the product.
Over the years there have been a range of issues with medical devices. Here are a few examples:
Essure (birth control device): hundreds of claims were filed against manufacturers Bayer and Conceptus Inc. by women, who suffered severe abdominal damage when the Essure birth control device moved and punctured their uterus and fallopian tubes.
Medtronic (defibrillator wire): back in 2007, several of the electrical wires sold by Manufacturer Medtronic were found to be defective and to have contributed to the deaths of at least five patients by failing to deliver a necessary shock.
NuvaRing (birth control device): another birth control disaster occured with the infamous NuvaRing, a “third-generation” hormone contraceptive that was found to be associated with stroke, heart attack, deep vein thrombosis, myocardial infarction, cerebrovascular accidents, pulmonary embolism, and death.
Although the FDA has a rigorous review process, each and every year new medical devices are put on the market that are found to be harmful. If you or your firm take on one of these cases and find yourself up against the big guys, call Orion Expert Network (OEN) for help putting together a pro expert witness team who can help make the case for you and your client.
News
French Medical Device Manufacturer to Pay $2 Million to Resolve Alleged Kickbacks to Physicians and Related Medicare Open Payments Program Violations – US Department of Justice
Peleton Recalls: What You Need to Know – WCPO
https://www.wcpo.com/marketplace/burg-simpson/peloton-recalls-what-you-need-to-know
Plaintiffs’ Lawyer in Roundup Cases Shifts to Syngenta Herbicide – Bloomberg Law
https://news.bloomberglaw.com/business-and-practice/plaintiffs-lawyer-in-roundup-cases-shifts-to-syngenta-herbicide
Medicare & Medicaid
Like all other Americans, no lawyer relishes dealing with an insurance company. Particularly a health insurance company. And even more particularly, a health insurance company with the added morass of state and federal government bureaucracy to wade through.
Welcome to Medicare and Medicaid litigation! If your law firm has taken on a Medicare or Medicaid case, you will be in dire need of expert witnesses to analyze and explain to you not only the medical aspects of your case, but also the mammoth state and federal regulations governing healthcare policy in this country.
What are Medicare and Medicaid, exactly?
Medicare, an insurance program run by the federal government, is primarily for those aged 65 or older, although it also serves younger disabled people and dialysis patients. Those covered by the program pay into trust funds for the insurance and receive coverage regardless of their income. There are some deductibles for hospital visits and small monthly premiums for non-hospital visits.
Medicaid serves low-income people of all ages, with those covered typically paying nothing for medical expenses, with the exception of some small co-payments for certain services. Unlike Medicare, which is an exclusively federal program, Medicaid is a jointly administered state-federal program. What this means is that from state to state, Medicaid rules and regulations – what services are covered, what procedures are permitted, what medications are allowed, what rate is paid to hospitals and doctors, et cetera – are different.
In order to make the best possible case for your client, you may need a number of expert witnesses from across the healthcare continuum – health law, pharmaceutical economics, healthcare management, medical ethics, medical billing, medical costs, microeconomics, health policy, healthcare administration, psychiatry, psychology, and like areas. These types of professionals are intimately acquainted with the procedures involved with healthcare coverage, which do vary based on the insurer.
Because Medicare is a federal government program and covers most seniors, it is by a mile the largest health insurance program in the United States. What this means is that most healthcare policy experts will be familiar with Medicare. However, very few of them will be on the cutting edge of all of the changes that have been made to the American healthcare system over the past decade. One thing that Orion Expert Network (OEN) can do for your firm is wade through this giant pool of experts and find those whose knowledge of the programs is completely up-to-date.
The Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, as well as other programs, such as the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), drastically expanded the pool of covered Americans and also updated, expanded, or changed many of Medicare’s and Medicaid’s rules and regulations. So, while your first instinct may be to go for an old pro with decades of Medicare and Medicaid litigation experience under their belt, you may be better off with a less-experienced expert who has studied recent updates to the healthcare system more fully.
OEN will consider this kind of angle for you, and will also figure out questions such as whether in a Medicaid case (remember, Medicaid is run by the states and the federal government), a local expert or a more nationally-renowned expert is the right fit for your case.
Government. Health insurance. It’s bound to be a mess. Call OEN today and get some help with the cleanup.
News
U.S. Court of Appeals Considers Expert Witness Michael F Arrigo’s Opinions in Fraud Case, Vacates and Remands Lower Court’s Ruling – PR Newswire
11th Circuit Upholds Doctor’s Massive Fraud Conviction – Courthouse News Service
https://www.courthousenews.com/11th-circuit-upholds-conviction-of-florida-eye-doctor/
What Makes Your Expert Witness the Best Witness? Social Science Research on Credibility and Influence Points the Way – The National Law Review
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