I make a point of always trying to recognize and acknowledge the good things in my life. It’s why I write about my pleasures in the garden or my love for my fair Kim. This morning I’m in a funny sort of mood. It is the middle of January and I have not booked any hours in my expert witness practice despite having about ten cases on my docket and a host of cases on the hoof. After a very busy October and November and closing out two cases by mid-November, I had a blank slate in December, which was both welcome and seemed an appropriate pause in the flow during the holidays. But the new year feels like things should be starting up. Sure enough, as of today, I have two entirely new cases signed up and a third likely to fall my way in the coming days. These are in addition to my existing backlog, so they are a very nice start to the new year. If every month began this way, I would be inundated. I have also been asked to schedule for later this month, two Advanced Masterclasses for my firm on the topic of depositions and testimony in the expert witness arena. This will be my second year doing two of those double sessions. And then a very interesting new opportunity has presented itself to me out of the blue. I received an email from a podcasting company about my interest in developing and hosting a podcast on the business of being an expert witness.
Suddenly I forgot about what seemed like a lull in my expert witness activity and started feeling pretty good about my new career (dare I call it that?) As I showered I looked out the shower window at the ocean and noted that there is nothing like the clarity of the January air on this hilltop to give you a million dollar view of the Pacific Ocean. I could clearly see every one of what I characterize as the forty miles of ocean that we can see from our hilltop perch. The magnificence of the California landscape is truly a wonder on a sunny and clear day like today. You see, I believe that my view feeds my spirit and my spirit feeds my attitude towards everything including my writing, my relationships and my work. When the view is clear and distant, so are my opportunities. I believe all those things are connected and very real and this morning it feels particularly so.
I have been actively writing for over thirty years now and writing this particular blog for six years. I have written half a dozen books and a few articles and yet whenever I am approached about doing something more commercially with my writing, I have gotten to a place where I stiff-arm those discussions away since I have found them frustratingly unproductive. I have also stopped teaching at the graduate university level because I am equally frustrated with that process and its lack of meaningful fulfillment for me at this point. it’s easy to turn those sorts of frustrations into a conclusion that you are past your sell-by date and have little to say of value or an audience that wants to hear it. Its a depressing conclusion which stifles much of the creative process and sits on the psyche like a soggy blanket. I have addressed that by deciding that I write for my own enjoyment and that anyone who wants to read my musings is free to do so. As for the teaching, I’ve stopped being a formal professor with all that that entails, but am always eager to do things like construct and conduct the Masterclasses that I described above. Recently the president of my college reunion class (I have my 50th upcoming) has suggested that she might want me to give a TED talk at reunion. When I suggested one on the expert witness game, she was quite interested.
You see, I get asked many, many questions about being an expert witness by friends and acquaintances that learn of my involvement in it. I think its must be like the influencer business to young adults. They would all like to consider themselves influential and cool and the thought of being paid for it seems both invigorating and very productive. The stories you hear about successful influencers are quite astounding. Well, I have a sense that the expert witness business has a very similar appeal to the cadre of retired professionals who are watching their long professional careers and experience erode away without being put to any noticeable use. Let’s face it, almost everyone in retirement would like to have some flexible part-time work to lean on at least intellectually if not financially. Who doesn’t want to monetize their experience and resume? Who doesn’t want to get paid for their opinions?
It seems to me that there is an intersection of interest between retired or retiring people and the need to deploy all that accumulated wisdom, and the expert witness arena provides just such an outlet. The flow of litigation and the complexity of that litigation is such that lawyers simply need these sorts of experts. But there are two generic forms of expertise. The first is what I consider to be academic and highly economic (meaning mathematical). These people deal in theory and the calculation of damages. They operate in the “but-for” world or what others might call the what-if. THe other arena of the expert witness world is where I tend to spend much of my time and that is the practicum side of the equation. As a practitioner of many years, I am most often asked to opine on the basis of my industry experience and address issues having to do with what is normal market practice in certain areas. In some ways, my world is much more the world of expertise where the former is more the province of technical skills and analysis. The truth is that they probably cross over with one another quite a bit, but there is clearly two approaches and it is up to the litigators trying a case to determine which way their case most benefits from expertise. It is not unheard of for both types of experts to be employed, but it is also quite common for combating litigators to favor one approach over another based on what access they and other swine has to experts on one sort or another.
I will be doing a Zoom meeting with the podcast platform provider that has solicited me to consider doing this. I will hear him out and ask a lot of questions and that will inform my decision on what to do about this opportunity. It is altogether possible that this is no more than another marketing hype to get me to use services that may or may not bear fruit. On the other hand, this might be a case where there is a legitimate opportunity to get an early-mover advantage and start a business that combines a whole array of aspects of things I enjoy doing and know a fair bit about.
Hopefully I will figure out if this is a new and invigorating view of the world that inspires me in new and productive directions or just another room with a view of a brick wall painted to look like the ocean.