Expert Witnesses Defined

Expert witnesses are people specialized in different fields, such as psychology, economy, science, technology and so on, who are required to offer their expert advice or opinions to courts of law whenever judges are in need of this. Although these professional witnesses ought to offer judges the possibility of taking a rational and impartial decision in what trials are concerned, some of them are hired in order to testify just in one part’s favor, reason for which they are called ‘hired guns’ and therefore disregarded in the USA.

Professional witnesses must necessarily be independent and also address their expert advice to courts of law, regardless of their relation to the parts of a trial. In addition, in case the liability is small, expert witnesses can be instructed not only by one side, but by both, as long as the two agree to this without any problem whatsoever. In what concerns the testimonies that these type of witnesses must make, usually they are instructed to give joint statements during which to detail the disagreement and the agreement points meant to assist the tribunals or the courts of law. In addition, if expert witness consultants modify and review their opinions, this can lead to case resolutions. In what settlements are concerned, these can be really beneficial to both parties involved in the trial, as this way important trial costs may be saved. Moreover, the majority of the legal systems in the world allow the trials or the legal procedures to be suspended, so that the witness experts can have the necessary time to study some cases and therefore come up with useful results. Furthermore, expert witnesses are known to meet before trials start, so they can come to an agreement concerning their outcomes.

An interesting fact concerning witness experts is that they charge a certain fee that must be paid by that party which commissions the report, even if this is meant to help the court of law. Nevertheless, this particular fee cannot be dependent on the case’s outcome.

Even if expert witnesses seem to have easy tasks to perform, their responsibilities are heavy, especially when they have to deal with penal trials. If they make false affirmations, they can be punished severely, reason for which they must always be accurate when they testify and base what they are saying on real knowledge and expertise. All in all, they have the lives of certain people in their hands and this is why not everybody can become a professional witness.

Expert Witnesses Defined

Expert Witnesses For Litigious Proceedings

Expert witnesses have been used in the US courts of law since 1782. This started happening as a result of the acceptance of an evidence provided by a civil engineer. In fact, the evidence that this person brought is cited nowadays as representing the beginning of modern courts of law that use expert witnesses. In these modern times, professional witnesses represent one of the most significant components of criminal and civil cases.

Among the expert advice that these professionals give during trials, one can find blood analysis opinions, fingerprint examinations, DNA fingerprinting, and so on. These are very common in criminal cases. On the other hand, when it comes to civil cases, forensic accountants, accident analysis and forensic engineers are the ones that are really important, as these specialists can assess the costs and the damages of complex cases that usually tend to last a long time. Some of the typical examples of such cases are represented by medical negligence and intellectual property.

In what forensic critical evidence is concerned, electronic evidence has entered its courtroom lately. This contains video and audio evidence that has to be authenticated not only by one party involved in the trial, but by both of them. These parties must necessarily include an expert witness who in turn has to assist the court when it comes to understanding details concerning electronic devices. Today, closed-circuit TV systems and voice-mail recordings produce much more electronic evidence than in the past, which is used mostly in litigation trials. Electronic expert witness consultants are the ones who present in court rooms evidence such as life threat audio recordings, bank robbery video recordings, and so on.

In what concerns the kinds of expert witnesses, there are two types: non-testifying experts and testifying ones. The non-testifying ones are hired in order to help with the evaluation of certain cases. In case that during the evaluation of specific situations these witnesses find something against their clients, the opposite party does not find about this. On the other hand, the testifying experts cannot enjoy this privilege, as once they are asked to testify in court, they cannot protect anyone anymore. In order not to have problems with the law, professional witnesses must present all evidences for the case. In this case, the final decision is taken by a jury which before deciding on a verdict must necessarily take into consideration the testimony of the expert witnesses. Senior physicians, attending physicians and consultants are the only ones that can be used in both criminal and civil trials.

Expert Witnesses For Litigious Proceedings

Finance: Collateral in the Standard Theory Pt 2

What else can we get out of these numbers? I just want you to notice a couple other things. So, these numbers are all very interesting. If you’re mathematical, these are the sorts of things you pay attention to. So, these efficient markets guys, they looked at the change in price every month. So, there’s a lot to say for their theory. They said, “Look, it goes up and down randomly.”

In fact, we’ll see that there are all kinds of tests about whether you can predict it’s going to go up tomorrow on the basis of how it did yesterday and the answer’s no. It’s very difficult to predict whether the stock market is going up or down. It seems to be random. Well, it’s random and they used to think it was normally distributed. A lot of people argued it was normally distributed, but it’s hard. You never get these gigantic outliers if things are normally distributed. They’re just way too unlikely to happen.

So, Mandelbrot, who was a Yale professor who retired a couple years ago, although he wasn’t when he formed his theories, the inventor of fractals, he said this couldn’t possibly be a random walk in the traditional Brownian motion sense of the word because you’d never get these big outliers, but he offered no explanation for why they might be there, and I don’t know if Shiller has an explanation either. I mean, is it that people suddenly get shocked one day and then the next week they changed their mind and things aren’t so bad after all. But, you’ll see that the theory of collateral and margins does explain these kinds of things.

Now, let’s just look at the Dow. We just looked at the Dow. Let’s look at another, the S&P 500. Here’s the S&P 500 data. Here’s the history of the S&P 500. It looks very similar to the Dow, except we have longer history back to 1871. So, I just want to point out one more thing in the S&P 500. So, this is an average of five hundred stocks, not just thirty, but it’s more or less the same.

But, let’s look at the same thing taking the logarithm and check for inflation. So, you see here that there are these four cycles. Things seemed low in 1871. They go up and they go down. Then you’ve got another up and a down. Then you’ve another up and a down. Four times the same thing has happened. Now, this could be just meaningless accidents, but it will turn out that the demography of the country, the baby boom cycle, we haven’t had just one baby boom, we’ve had four of them. So, this cycle of stock prices, which they’re each time a generation long, happens to correspond exactly to the rise, the different age distribution in the population.

So, another theory of the stock market, which wouldn’t have been entertained by these original financial theorists, is that demography has something to do with the stock market, not information about profits and returns but the distribution of ages in the population. So, I’m not saying this theory is correct, although I was one of the proponents of it, but it shows that there’s a room, I think, in finance for economic things, for demography to matter, for leverage to matter and not just for expectations about for future profits.

 

Finance: Collateral in the Standard Theory Pt 2 

Finance: Course Intro Pt 2

The most famous Yale economist of the second half of the twentieth century was James Tobin, a famous macroeconomist, the most famous macroeconomist possibly, of the second half of the twentieth century after Keynes, a great Keynesian. But he got the Nobel Prize for work he did on finance in economics. Finance was incredibly interesting to him.

So, Bob Shiller and I went to Yale and we basically said to the deans, “There’s a long tradition of finance and economics hand-in-hand at Yale, and so it’s not a vocational subject. It’s actually central to economics and central to understanding the economy and central to understanding the global economy. So, we’d like to teach it to Yale undergraduates and we believe few of them will actually take the course.” And so, they agreed to let us do it, and so we’ve been teaching it now for the last ten years.

So, as you know, Shiller has been very critical of the business efficient markets tradition. He feels that these finance professors left something essential out of the whole story. What they left out was psychology. They left out the idea of fads and rumors and narratives, which he thinks has as big an effect on prices as the hard information about profits that the business school professors imagined drove profits.

I, myself, have been quite critical of the financial theory. I started off as a   straight pure mathematical economist. To me, economics was almost a branch of logic and philosophy that happened to tell you something about the world. So, I got my PhD with Ken Arrow, who you’ll hear a lot about very shortly. And I came to Yale, I’d been a Yale undergraduate. I came back to Yale and I joined the Cowles Foundation. And the Cowled Foundation’s motto was basically, “Can we make economics more mathematical? Economics, a social science, ought to be amenable to mathematical analysis just like physics or chemistry is,” and people didn’t believe this at first. And the Cowles Foundation, which you’ll hear a lot about in these lectures, led the revolution in economics transforming it from a verbal subject, political economy into a mathematical subject.

Well, I decided around 1989 that since I did mathematical economics and there were all these finance people doing all kinds of mathematical things on Wall Street and doing it very successfully, I thought I might just check out what they were doing. So, it might be fun to see what they were up to. So, I went to Wall Street and I joined – most people I knew, in fact, professors I knew went to Goldman Sachs. There was a famous finance professor who I had mentioned before named Fischer Black, who was there at the time and he attracted a lot of people. And so, that was the traditional thing to do, but I decided to go to a littler firm called Kidder Peabody, and it was the seventh biggest investment bank at the time.

And one thing led to another and they decided that they wanted to reorganize their research department in fixed income. And since I was a professor there and I did mathematical economics and I was there for the whole year, somebody said, the director of the Fixed Income Department said, “Why don’t you take charge of it and hire a new Fixed Income Research Department for me. So, I did, and ultimately there were seventy five people in the department. All the time I was a professor at Yale. And after five years, Kidder Peabody, even though it was a hundred thirty five years old formed by a famous family, the name should sound – Peabody – familiar to you. It closed down after a hundred thirty five years, five years after I got there. I had to invite the seventy five people I’d hire into my office and say, “You’re fired.” And then I went next door to the office next to mine and the guy there said, “You’re fired.” And so, that was my first taste of Wall Street. And after that, six of us founded a hedge fund called Ellington Capital Management, which was a mortgage hedge fund, and we had – I’ll tell you a lot about it.

It started after the Kidder closing as a rather small hedge fund, but it grew into a very big mortgage hedge fund, in fact the biggest mortgage hedge fund in the country. Although recently, we found out that practically everybody who trades mortgages is basically a hedge fund. Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, they’re all basically hedge funds, so it doesn’t mean anything anymore to say that you’re a big mortgage hedge fund. But anyway, we almost went out of business in ‘98 a subject, a story I’ll tell you at great length, and then we just suffered through this disastrous last year or two, but we’re still here.

So, these experiences, of course, have colored my understanding of Wall Street and my approach to the subject.

Finance: Course Intro Pt 2  

Using a Protective Gear Expert Witness In Court

Regardless of the work environment, protection at work must be given the priority. While performing their duties, employees may encounter different types of dangers. Therefore, it is the responsibility of the operating company to ensure the safest condition of the environment all the time. Unfortunately, there are times you need to compromise on something that may possibly lead to damages, injuries, and accidents.

As expected, when a person gets injured, he battles for the claim which he thinks he deserves. Based on some factors, the litigation can be settled through painstaking trials or through a settlement done outside the court. Either of the two, the complainant needs all the support he should receive. One of the experts who are trusted to help in court is a protective gear consultant.

Being a protective gear authority means that the expert witness knows everything on protective gears, safety, and different equipment. If your injury is produced by the company’s failure to give you security, the authority and testimony of a gear expert witness will serve as a great tool for your lawyer to get claims.

During the court proceedings, the expert witness has the responsibility to delivery his findings, give recommendations, and use his professional opinion in most effective ways. When testifying, he is also in authority to explain clearly and completely how he ended up with his opinion. With his role in the court, the future of the case can possibly make it.

Stephan Schmidheiny and the Case of Asbestos Factories

Stephan Schmidheiny is a Swiss manufacturer. He and his business partner were proven guilty and accountable for the death of multitudes of workers in their factories while producing asbestos. Based on the reports, three thousand plus people died for being exposed to the fatal mineral. The business owners were conscious of the hazards brought by asbestos, but Stephan and his partner failed to observe protective measures for their employees. Finally, the two were found guilty. The court ordered them to compensate large money in punitive damages, including the 16 years of detention.

But of course, prior to the giving of court decision, a lot of specialist witnesses were summoned to the stand. Those expert witnesses were from the different fields of experience and expertise. Two or some of them belonged to protective gear experts. The responsibility of the expert is to give the court their reliable findings that labourers where not in full security with regards to asbestos. And asbestos is really hazardous to humans.

Nursing Expert Witnesses: Their Importance in Court Proceedings

There are lots of instances where a medical specialist is charged of negligence of duty or working in breach for his profession. When special cases reach the courtroom, the jurors may not fully understand the nature of the allegation except when a nurse expert witness is hired. Medical expert witnessesare responsible in giving their proficient opinion and account on the matter.

While it is a fact that juries are only in the court to implement the law, they are not really experienced people who have full knowledge about medical matters. Jurors do not have the expertise to understand the duties and responsibilities of medical professionals. Same thing is applied to other technical areas like engineering, technology, and others. Hence, the court needs a specialist like a nurse expert witness from a medical sector.

Because there’s a need for a nurse expertise, each time there is court case it will touch the expert professional testimony of a practitioner. Jurors’ last option is to integrate an expert’s participation to fully understand the case issues. This processing is always necessary to help jurors look into the matter for a deeper understanding in a professional perspective.

In every court case, there’s a difference between the opinions coming from a professional source and the observation of people unfolding the events, although they are relating to the same incident. This is a similar case when it comes to murder trials. The observers may be insistent on having witnessed the beating scene of a victim done by the accused person, but the pathologist might state otherwise once he made his findings on pathology.

In order to become qualified to testify in the court and become a nursing expert witness, there are a number of criteria to meet. There are so many types of professions and one can be capable enough to qualify in all of the qualifications. Therefore, it is expected that judiciary knows it well.

Any person who is a specialist and a certified nurse consultant can become a legally recognized nurse witness. He can be considered as an expert witness to give his opinion in the court. The certification he has is strong evidence. It means he possesses the thorough understanding of whatever he may claim.

Expert witnesses assist in the courtroom preparations and their role is to testify either for the defense or the plaintiff. Nobody wants to become a professional nurse with the purpose to harm. Being an expert witness is not often easy and the witness won’t overlook the pressure during the court proceedings.

Appraisal Expert Witness: Their Services in Court Proceedings

There are many claims for both automobile insurance and personal injury. Each of them is required to have an expert auto appraiser in order to evaluate the damage done in vehicles or cars. In case there is a valid reason to decline any claims, these experts are the same people who can be requested to take stand acting as the auto expert witness in the court.

Unfortunately, there are lots of auto accidents that happened due to criminal negligence. Those cases will involve big charges like the DUI, reckless driving, speeding, as well as vehicular manslaughter. Inside the court trial, attorneys will always rely on the appraisal expert witness in proving the facts of their explanation.

When do you need an auto appraisal consultant? Generally speaking, any accident may be the cause of either the mistake of the driver or the failure and malfunctioning of one of the cars. Because cars are most of the time the damaged unit, they are torn apart after the high-speed car crash. In this condition, how will the court make the right decision about who is responsible for this accident?

A certified automobile professional will search for revealing signs of the usual problems, even in the worst vehicle accident. His experience also plays the important role of the expert witness. An older auto appraiser may be able to use practical understanding to analyze the accident scene.

In most cases, it is required that the appraisal expert witness has the required expertise. For example, if the attorney is persuaded that his client’s accident happened because of a car model’s fault, the lawyer will search for auto consultant to work as an expert witness. This witness must have used the same car model and brand. He is going to give the testimony based on the practical and the real experience he has.

How to get the best automobile expert? The answer is dependent on the kind of case. However, great lawyers do follow basic guidelines when choosing the expert witness. This is due to the fact that the court trial is an argumentative place. Both of the parties will bring more competent expert witness.

With regards to cases on car accidents, both the juries and the lawyers appear to prefer the practice of professionals coming from automobile industry versus the academic and non-professional specialists. Moreover, attorneys are also in search of auto specialists who have gained certifications in the industry. It is also advantageous when the witness can demonstrate the on-going interest while improving and updating his professional competencies.

The Role of an Expert Engineer in A Fire Investigation

Correctly determining the cause or fire will need the support and assistance of an engineer. Many think that a person’s certification with long years of experience, expertise and training would be sufficient, but this is not always possible. Joined with the engineering and scientific principles, expert fire investigators use a systematic way of evaluating explosion accidents and fire. Qualified and certified engineers have gained trainings on investigating fire cases. This happens in different areas like in electrical, marine, civil, and mechanical disciplines. They can give professional testimony in these areas:

1. Laboratory testing and analysis
2. Origin and cause determination
3. Proof of storage and collection
4. Engineering assessment (for mechanical and electric)

Expert engineers are licensed and trained professionals. They have obtained particular fire investigation training with proof of certification. Experts do follow the meticulous procedure of the fire investigation including evidence storage and collection. They use advanced equipment like recording equipment, temperature measuring, sampling for carbon monoxide, and meters for property material analyses.

Annually, there are about thousands of expert fire investigations in USA. If there’s no engineering and technical input, the expert investigator may end up with perceptions that are not correct. For instance, a fire investigator may be asked to make investigation on automobile fire which was previously considered as electrical fire. When the expert reached the place to investigate, the components of the vehicle had been removed already. An expert engineer can reconstruct the whole vehicle to find out the cause of fire. All electrical components and equipment will be tested. The expert may conclude the cause of fire was not the vehicle.

Technical knowledge on data is a portion of the success of the fire investigation scene. Experts provide technical advantage in the following:

1. Fire spread and behaviour
2. Fire recognition pattern
3. Timeline determination
4. Standards and codes interpretation
5. Considerations on materials and construction of the building

Because fire destroys clue-yielding materials, engineers must always be ready to create ideal product and scale reproduction for the scene reconstruction. It is obligatory to develop, perform, and design related tests. Expert engineers possess the necessary know-how and experience.

It is influential to get the services of an expert to cover the different areas of fire accidents. Typically, it happens for a variety of reasons which include the failure or absence of devices and failure to observe practices on security. It is an advantage for the client and eventually to the jurors to find an expert who will present the facts that caused the incident.

For all the disasters that may happen, fire is considered as one of the most destructive disasters. When a big structure is caught by fire, nothing will be left behind. As a result, many people purposely search for property insurance to give them future protection on their property. Hence, experts are used in the court to conduct investigation if any fire is planned or not.

What Does an Acoustic Expert Witness Do in the Court?

The term acoustics refers to the study of sounds involving the factors associated with vibration, noise, and rate of occurrence.  Therefore, an acoustic expert witness is a professional who offers his excellent evidence on the acoustic condition of a specific thing or place.

Sometimes the witness is called the noise professional witness due to the noise of his evidence in the court.  The area of expertise involves the general environment, architectural structures, and buildings.

To become a specialist in this field, an individual must have complied with the court’s requirement.  Some of these requirements are the following: long years of work experience, comprehensive knowledge about all acoustic areas, and a degree bachelor in any related area.

The essence of acoustic authority inside the court is shown in a different way.  This is the reason why there are many kinds of acoustic witnesses.  The need depends mainly on the field of their expertise and where do they focus on.  For example, in the medical area, some professionals are requested to recognize the effects of various levels of sound on the individual.  They state in the court how to cure the injured person.  Occasionally, these people are referred to as audio experts with specialization on certain areas.  These areas are the sound transmission, sound waves, sound reception and the sound propagation.

Significance of the Profession

As stated, there are a many kinds of professionals on acoustic fields.  Every one of them takes charge of the function whether inside or outside the court.  Such roles are these:

• They give suitable advice to give solution to the noise and sound problem.
• They give assessment evaluation and information about the system’s sound proof of the building.
• When not in court, these specialists can office counsel on the right way of setting up a good sound system—to avoid noise and problems on sound.
• They give reports and surveys about noise.
• They stand for the client when in court.  They give full support in every possible way because they are properly informed on legitimate laws related to noise.
• They do the representation of the client in the court.

If there is a need for the services of an acoustic expert witness, there are lots them and can be easily contacted. Only one thing is important: determine the kind of acoustic expert witness you need and the reasons why.  And if you want a reputable company that offers expert witnesses, the Internet is always the best source of information in your local area.

What Does an Acoustic Expert Witness Do in the Court?

Expert Witness: Ballistics and More

Ballistics expert authority post by Sam C.

The use of ballistics in everyday use is very rare, and even rarer do they cause damage to property or injury to people. That isn’t to say, however, that incidents involving ballistics don’t occur on some occasions.

Obviously the consequences of damage caused by explosives can be very serious, and these consequences could lead to expensive or even life changing costs. If the use of ballistics causes damage to property, it could be so serious that it destroys a home, or it ruins vehicles or something else of high value. If this is the case, you would feel aggrieved if you had to pay the cost of the damages. Similarly, if an explosion caused by ballistics led to personal injury, it could potentially be so damaging that it means you are unable to continue working and it could completely change your life, so you would therefore feel entitled to compensation to cover the costs you have suffered.

However, not all injury or damage caused to you or your property necessarily entitles you to compensation. The damage would have to have been caused by the negligence or the fault of another person, so for you to automatically assume that you are eligible to receive some sort of payment would be a mistake. If you were handling the ballistics, for example, but you didn’t know the proper way to handle and use them and hence caused the damage yourself, you couldn’t blame the distributors for your mistake. This is where ballistics expert witnesses are vital.

Ballistics expert witnesses are specialists in the field of ballistics and explosives. They are leading experts, which enables them to make a better judgement on whether you are likely to have a winnable case or not. They have the necessary expertise to not only determine what happened to make the situation so severe, but also to provide litigation support and to testify in the courtroom in order to maximise the chance of you winning your case. The expert witnesses have all the necessary qualifications and are certified to provide the best possible advice for any situation involving ballistics.

Therefore, it is important to make a referral with a consultant before taking the case to court, as this will ensure that you receive the best advice as well as the support needed for you to make a successful case. A ballistics expert witness could be the difference between winning and losing your case.

Expert Witness: Ballistics and More