The value of honest experts

Many of our posts refer to experts who make a lot of money writing reports for the defence, and who are criticized by the courts.  Cynics might say that Plaintiff lawyers do the same thing: hire “experts” who will craft reports to support the case of whoever  pays them, rather than tell the truth.

I disagree.  One difference between Plaintiff lawyers and Defence lawyers is: we invest our own money.  If a judge decides our expert was not telling the truth: we lose.  In almost every case, our client is broke.  So we end up paying the expert with our own money.  And we lose our investment in the time to prepare the case, do the trial, etc.

Not so the Defence.  If the Defence loses, their expert still gets paid.  The Defence lawyers still get paid.  The ICBC adjustor still gets paid.  No one loses a penny.  No one loses sleep.  In fact, defence lawyers get paid more to lose a trial, than to settle honourably — because they bill by the hour.  So do defence experts.  But court time gets wasted.

In a recent case of mine, the opposing lawyer (not an ICBC lawyer) kept trying to set up defence medical exams.  She proposed one defence hack after another.  I managed to stymie her on every one.  Finally, after two years of me blocking her, she called me up.  She asked what the heck my problem was (at least that was the gist of her question).

I told her that a hack expert is no value to either side.  Their hack would say my client wasn’t hurt.  Or had been hurt – but got all better.  Or it was my client’s fault.  The usual defence garbage.  So I would ignore the report.  She would ignore the report because she knew the expert was a whore – ready to say anything.  It would not help us settle. The case was set for a nineteen day trial, in a few months.   I would expose the hack experts as liars and fools at trial.  So why waste time and money?  Why not get an honest expert to examine my client?  One who, when I got the report, I would have to accept as being honest – even if I disagreed with the conclusion?  One who would help us settle the case?

Well, she did.  She hired two entirely professional and honest experts.  I read their reports – which concluded my client was hurt by the injury, would never return to her pre-injury condition, but had some good prospects for improvement.  She did hire one hack – who (miraculously) concluded the same.

Then we exchanged detailed offers to settle, laying out our arguments and the amounts of money we each thought was appropriate to compensate my client.  We had a mediation soon after, with a very experienced mediator.  We settled in three hours (I think we were all holding out to get lunch).  Done and dusted.

When the mediation concluded, everyone gathered in the room to say the traditional “Thank yous”.  The insurance adjustor and defence lawyer HUGGED my client.  I have never seen that before.

Honest experts settle cases.

Hacks don’t.