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Expert Witness Websites: What Attorneys Really Look For

In this conversation with Louisville, Kentucky trial attorney Brian, we discussed the critical factors attorneys consider when evaluating expert witnesses online, what makes a professional website, and how experts can market themselves without compromising credibility.

Search Features on Expert Websites

Tadeo: I had two people tell me different things about having a search icon on an expert's website. One said it helps when a lawyer is looking for an expert because they can search for different things. The other said it doesn't help because the opposition could use that same search icon and look for things that could be used against you. What are your thoughts?

Brian: One of my favorite things to do when they hire an expert is go on the other side's website and go through every single file if I need to. it' unbelievable to me how biased some of them will put their stuff. One of them said something like "I do this stuff for the insurance companies, I do this all day long." And I'm like, dude, you don't just put that on a website. You just gave me some fantastic cross-examination questions to ask you. Did you really think this out?

I guess at a certain point they're just selling themselves to the insurance companies that are hiring them. This was about seven years ago, back when insurance companies were hiring doctors to do peer reviews, which is to basically look through my client's medical records and say "this person wasn't hurt." I'd go on their websites and see that they believe in some of the procedures, and they actually provide some of the procedures that they're saying in their reports they don't do.

I'm like, are you really going to call this expert? Do you want to encourage the carrier to change their mind and actually pay my client to go away? Or how ugly does this have to get? But that's not an everyday scenario. it' a fantastic one when a plaintiff's lawyer can get that kind of evidence.

I'm going to use anything and everything on the website for cross-examination if I have access to it. So you absolutely have to be very careful on both sides. Same thing going the other way. I don't want to hire somebody that does all plaintiff's work all day long and always testifies for the plaintiff and puts it on their website.

Some experts are savvy. When I'm asking them"how much do you do for this side and how much do you do for that side?"they'll say "I don't know, I don't keep track of that."Well, we all know you keep track of it. But you're probably not going to put it on your website saying "I do 60% this and 40% this"or "I do 95% this and 5% this."It doesn't make any sense to do that. You can tell when you're deposing somebody or cross-examining somebody how savvy they are based on what's on their website.

When Opposing Counsel Nitpicks Website Details

Tadeo: Let's say the expert has a really good, fact-based report. Sometimes what the opposition will do is try to bring up stuff on their website to make them look bad, but it' not necessarily anything bad. Like asking"Why do you have this photo?"when it' just a photo they put there. Do you think the jury can tell they're just trying to make him look bad?

Brian: If you're cross-examining somebody or deposing somebody and looking to make them look stupid and you're not doing it in a pleasant manner, then you're going to look like a jerk yourself. But the expert needs to know: my website, my Instagram, my Facebook, the other side is going through all this.

Jurors are instructed during trial: do not go and research this stuff. You would hope that doesn't happen, but you hear stories. Stories of people going home and doing their own experiments or showing up to the scene during the middle of trial when they've been specifically instructed by the judge not to do this thing. If they're doing that, you have to believe they're probably Googling each lawyer, they're probably Googling the experts, they're seeing what these people have done, they're searching their websites, they're looking up their past history.

That's all stuff that I do when I'm trying to figure out information about the other side and also about people that are testifying on behalf of my clients.

The Importance of Simple, Professional Website Design

Tadeo: Do you as a lawyer care if you see a home tab on a website? Some people make a really big deal about it, but I really don't think it matters.

Brian: If I was an expert, the safest thing for me in creating a website would be to make it as simple as possible. I don't want a bunch of tabs every which way. I want it to say who I am, what I do, why I can say what I can say, what my education is, what experience I have in this particular level of whatever I'm testifying on.

If it' too complicated, then you're probably giving the other side a decent amount of information to cross-examine you with. A home tab? I mean, I have a home tab on my website that says the different things that I do. You want to make it easy for the user. If I go on a website and I can't figure out what the heck this person does or who they are, then I'm not going to use them. If it' not user-friendly for the person that's trying to hire them, I'm going to click on to the next person.

For me, a home tab wouldn't make any difference. I just want to make sure that the information that I need is on the website and that There's nothing there where I'm like "I don't want to hire this person because of X, Y, and Z that they posted on their website."

Most people know to click on the logo if they want to go back to the home tab. it' not a big deal. I would assume that most lawyers are relatively savvy with utilizing the internet and expect a certain level of professionalism from these experts and their websites. If the website is not professional and not put together well, then I'm going to move on to the person that has the professional website that says what it needs to say and makes it easy for the user.

Why Modern, Professional Websites Matter

Tadeo: Some experts have websites that look like they were built in 2000. They tell me "I don't need a website, lawyers can come and find me."But something I've been noticing is that professionalism and looking modern matters. If you have two experts, one with a really old school website that's hard to navigate, and another with a really professional one that's easy to navigate and has nothing that could be used against them, would that weigh in on your decision?

Brian: it' very easy to create a professional website if you have the right people doing it. If somebody has a website from 20 years ago, and There's lawyers that do the same thing with websites from 20 years ago, I'm like"why are you guys having this website from 20 years ago?"it' not really that difficult. You hire the right people, they make you a website, you're not doing it yourself. it' not terribly cost-ineffective as well. And I believe it helps you rank higher in different algorithms.

The notion that you wouldn't update your website seems weird to me. Maybe you're so busy that you don't need to do that. But that seems like an old person thing to think, that "I don't need a new website"or "I'mpos;m good with this thing that looks like AOL from 1998."

Reviews and Relationships Between Experts and Attorneys

Tadeo: Some experts don't want to collect reviews because they think the opposition might make a connection and say"oh, they know each other, that's why they hired each other, it' not because he's a real expert."If the expert is an expert and it' true that he's friends with the lawyer, does that really matter?

Brian: My father-in-law is a traffic engineer and he is a good traffic engineer. He would make the perfect witness for me in all sorts of cases. But the first question that would ever be asked of him is"how do you know Brian?"Because if you just Googled me, you would figure out that's my father-in-law. So I can't hire him in a lot of cases. Now, I can use him behind the scenes to advise me on all sorts of stuff, which is super helpful.

I would think at a certain point, if the same lawyer is hiring the same expert 25, 30 times in a row and it' all the same stuff, that becomes a problem. I heard about a lawyer in Virginia for 20 years, there was a plaintiff's lawyer in town that always used the same expert for opining that different people had brain injuries. Whether or not they had brain injuries, this guy was going to say that they had a brain injury.

That becomes a problem from all sorts of fronts: ethics, cross-examination, the same guy doing it over and over and over again. That's not the things that are supposed to happen. I don't want to hire the same expert over and over and over again. If they're good on a particular case and they're helpful and I can justify it and they're telling me truthful information, yeah, that's who I want to use if I've used them in the past.

But it becomes dangerous over and over and over again because the jury hears"well, how much money has this plaintiff's lawyer paid this expert over time?"or"how much money has this defense lawyer paid this expert over time?"If it' in a six-figure range, that's probably saying to the jury"what are this person's incentives here? Is this person just saying this because the lawyer's paying them to say it?"

In full candor, I can pay someone to tell you the sky is purple because there are all sorts of experts that, in my opinion, are just bought. That can go both sides, but obviously as a plaintiff's lawyer I'm skewed to think that the experts telling people they're not hurt over and over and over again are defense hacks and insurance defense hacks paid by the insurance companies.

I like experts that don't do a lot of the same stuff over and over again. I have a tendency to hire unique experts on all different types of cases that I work on. But you have to make sure that your expert's not going to get destroyed by the other side when you're thinking about who you're going to hire.

If it' ten years ago and you hired an expert once and you hire them again now, that could be a normal situation. I don't have any problem with that. But if I have the same expert saying every single one of my clients has this exact same injury, that's not the best thing in the world.

There's some experts for different types of cases. You get your shoulder expert for a torn rotator cuff, you need a knee person for knee, a hip person, a back person in every which way. But you don't want to be hiring a shoulder guy to tell you that someone's hand is messed up. You'd rather the shoulder person tell you that, so you have to make sure that person is experienced in that particular area.

Photos on CVs: Should Experts Include Them?

Tadeo: The CV gets handed out to the jury, to everyone. I see some experts that have their photo on the CV and others that don't. I've heard it could cause a bias on race or if they look too fancy. Is it recommended that they have their photo or not?

Brian: It depends on that particular case and how many experts are testifying. I would think that if there were five experts on each side, it wouldn't hurt to have this person's photo there. If it' a one expert case, I don't know if you need the photograph there.

But you're spot on. I don't want my expert looking like they come from a boatload of money or wearing some flashy Rolex or whatever. That's not a good look. Lawyers do the same thing. I love to try a case against lawyers that wear a big old flashy gold Rolex. I'm like"this is fantastic, I'm glad this could be a decision to wear this thing"because the jury sees that thing and he's saying"don't give my client a bunch of money."And I'm like"dude's got a $25,000 watch on, he comes from some money, what are you talking about?"

I think jurors are smart. They put two and two together. So it' fantastic from my side when the other side does that. But I definitely don't want my experts looking too fancy for lack of a better term.

Tadeo: Can they update their CV depending on the case?

Brian: I don't have any problem with them updating their CV and putting a photo on it or not putting a photo on it. That's fine with me. Now, if the CV gets entered into evidence multiple times, I guess the other side could obtain that and then start questioning the expert about why they were doing photos or not doing photos. But I don't really think it' going to make a difference to a jury whether the photo is on it or not. I kind of like photos. I'd probably put them on there.

I want to see the expert on the website as well. Some websites don't have a photograph of the expert. People are people, humans are humans. I want to see who I'm dealing with and who is going to be put in front of a jury at the end of the day. If There's not a photograph, I'm like"what's the deal? What's this person trying to hide?"

I don't think it' necessarily deceptive in nature, but why is there not a photo of that person on the website? There's lawyers that have this stuff too, and I'm like "what's the deal?" it' usually sixty, seventy-year-old lawyers that for whatever reason don't put their photographs on their website. Or lawyers that don't want to be identified because they do a specific type of law where they don't want people finding them, which is fine, I get that. That's a nice exception. But if it' just a general website, you should have your photograph on it.

Marketing as an Expert Witness

Tadeo: Some experts say "I don't want to have too much marketing because it can be used against me." Everything can be used against us. Do you think that's a good excuse to not do marketing and then not get as many cases as they could? Or would you still recommend that they should do some marketing?

Brian: It is a business. It is a practice that they need to work on. A limited amount of marketing is fine. Most of the people that I'm cross-examining are usually defense experts, and some of them are hired by insurance companies. When it says something like "insurance company expert" on their website, I can clearly see they work for the insurance companies. I can cross-examine you on this and make it look like you're biased towards them.

They would probably be better off saying "I'mpos;m an expert in this particular area of the law" and leaving it at that. I mean, you want to do enough marketing so you have some work. I think juries get that some people market themselves as experts.

You want to, as an expert, not just be doing it all day long and not be doing anything else. You want to be actively doing the practice of whatever it is. So if you are testifying about people's injuries, you should have somewhat of a medical practice that's ongoing or have done it for 20, 30, 40 years, whatever it is.

But if you're just doing that, like if you just graduated med school and you're like "I'mpos;m going to be an expert witness in this particular thing," that's not going to look well. You don't have the experience to be able to testify about it and that's super important.

Tadeo: So if they're younger, it would make sense if they have their actual business and do expert witness work on the side. And it makes sense if they might do more expert witness work once they get older, right?

Brian: Once they have the experience to be able to testify about the thing that they're testifying about, that's essentially the goal. But if you're straight out of your education, that's not to suggest you need a certain type of education to be able to testify. I've worked on cases before where we needed an opinion about a horse saddle. I drove up from South Florida to Ocala to meet with an expert so they could physically evaluate a saddle.

it' not like they went to college for saddle evaluation or anything. They just had been doing that type of work for so long and had been around horses for that long that they were able to testify about it. That level of experience allowed them to do so, which is why we were utilizing that expert.

About Brian

Tadeo: For people that don't know you, can you tell us who you are, your law firm, what you specialize in, and who you like working with?

Brian: I'm a plaintiff's personal injury lawyer in Louisville, Kentucky. I handle cases across the state. I do all different types of cases. I'd say the bulk of my cases are car crash cases. I do a lot of dog bite cases for whatever reason. I also represent a lot of children that are hurt in various daycare centers. I do some medical malpractice. Basically, anytime anybody is hurt and they need someone to help them, that's when I get involved.

My stock and trade is being available, being able to try a case if I need to try a case, and working hard.

Key Takeaways for Expert Witnesses

This conversation with Brian highlighted several important considerations for expert witnesses:

Website Content: Be extremely careful about what you put on your website. Anything can and will be used for cross-examination. Avoid appearing biased toward one side or making claims that could be contradicted.

Professionalism: Modern, professional websites matter. They signal credibility and make it easy for attorneys to find the information they need.

Simplicity: Keep your website simple and focused on your credentials, experience, and expertise. Avoid unnecessary complexity that could provide ammunition for opposing counsel.

Marketing Balance: Some marketing is necessary to build your practice, but maintain professionalism and avoid appearing too commercial or biased.

Experience Matters: Continue practicing in your field while doing expert witness work, especially early in your career. Real-world experience enhances credibility.

Relationship Management: While repeat business is valuable, be cautious about being hired too frequently by the same attorneys, as it can raise questions about bias.