Attorneys Like Experts That Are Accessible – Plaintiff Attorney Will Mitchell with Mitchell Rogers Injury Law

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Today’s guest attorney is Will Mitchell, a personal injury attorney with Mitchell Rogers Injury Law.

[00:00:00]

Ted: Just to recap, the podcast is to help expert witnesses know how attorneys find them. I help the experts with their web design and SEO and a lot of the questions they had was. What keywords are attorneys using? What do they wanna see on my website? And that’s where the idea for the podcast came from.

I’d like to give you an opportunity, to talk about you, your law firm, what you do, and if anyone listening is an ideal client for you, who would that be?

Will: Yeah, my partner Scott and I started a plaintiff’s personal injury firm about two and a half years ago here in Vegas after doing each of us, about 10 years, of defense work where we primarily defended car accident cases for insurance companies, if not exclusively. did that, yeah, we started two and a half years ago.

There’s three attorneys now. and, We are a one-stop shop, a law firm. there’s, and there’s [00:01:00] absolutely no shade to people who, advertise and get cases. And then when cases need to be filed, they hand ’em off to somebody else. Those are, some of our best clients are firms who stick with that part of the law where they’re like, Hey, we’re gonna do our best to settle this case without having to file a lawsuit.

But, if it needs to happen, we’re gonna involve somebody who has an expertise in that. That’s us. when, so when cases come to us, they’re with us till the very end. We’re not gonna, farm it out to a different firm,to file a lawsuit or to litigate unless it’s a very specific situation where we just don’t feel like we are the best person to represent the client anymore, or we feel like they would be better served by somebody else stepping in and taking their case on, or coming into co-counsel with us and help ’em out.

there’s no ego attached to it. When I say. we’re a one stop shop and we’ll do it till the end. but that’s just the way that we operate our firm. And the ideal client for us is somebody who is injured, through no or [00:02:00] little fault of their own. and,is looking for help on that journey and is, to be, respectful and, grateful. when applicable to our team, our team works very hard and we get it, our clients, they’re always going through a tough time. So we get it when they’re stressed and different things like that because look, they’re hiring us because they’re hurt.

And when people have chronic pain or a brain injury and they can’t remember things or different things like that. it’s, it can be hard, right? And they’re frustrated and we just want them to feel like they can always call us. We’ll talk ’em through everything. We’ll handle it, and all they need to do is worry about getting better.

And we’ve been able to get some, really good results that way. we definitely have a lot of great relationships with, many of the attorneys and firms here in town because we’ve been practicing a while. We’ve been on both sides. And, yeah, feel like that we can. That more than some people, we have a fairly objective sense of, the value of [00:03:00] a case or the strengths and weaknesses.

But anybody who’s tried enough cases, has that, if you’ve never been to trial and it’s harder to get to trial these days, but if you’ve never been to trial, it’s difficult to know what’s important when you’re taking a deposition. The questions that you’re asking, it’s difficult to know, does this really matter or am I just asking the questions that the senior partner gave me?

Why is this important? but yeah, our firm we’re super easygoing. As far as our personalities, but, work very hard to get the best outcomes we can for clients. And honestly, we have a ton of fun. Like we enjoy working together. and I think that helps us drive great results.

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Ted: Will thank you so muchfor being here.

And so one of the questions I had is lead magnets, are very useful for capturing people’s informations, from the website side of things or on the consumer side of things, right? It’s been overused to where now they’re very [00:04:00] annoying unless they’re giving you something for free or something like that. And so I’m curious for you as an attorney and as a consumer, let’s say you found an expert and.

You do go through their website, what would be something that you, that they would have to offer so that you’re like, I’m gonna give this person my email. I wanna see their case studies, their cv. What would that be for you?

Will: Oh, okay. I don’t search for experts online like we either find them through other attorneys who have used them or, just locally, are introduced to them. I don’t go to experts websites,

so I’ve never been in this situation before, but hypothetically, if I went onto an expert’s website, I guess for me, if I’m already searching out that expert and I already wanna work with them, I. [00:05:00] It could be, honestly, something as simple as book a call with me, or give me your email and I’ll reach out to you like, I don’t really need, an Amazon gift card or, Hey, here’s my 10 steps to using an expert witness.

that’s not what I’m looking for. That’s not the value that I’m looking for them to add to the case. I’m happy to just set up a time to call,or talk to them. and that would be it. They can have my phone number, email, whatever they want.

Ted: Yeah. Oh, okay. Okay. That makes sense. Hypothetically again, let’s say you do find an expert on your, to your network or you found one through a directory, does it make it more appealing when you see that they also have a website or doesn’t?

Will: No, it doesn’t really matter to me one way or the other. If they have a website,if they’re a medical expert, I would think it, if they’re a practicing doctor who is a medical expert, if they’re retired, then no big deal. [00:06:00] If they’re a medical expert who’s practicing, I would think it’d be weird if their facility doesn’t have a website.

but I don’t think that would really affect necessarily like their. efficacy as an expert, I would just think there may be a weird person if they’re running a business that they don’t have a website for, or that they’re just gonna be like, maybe old and hard to deal with. if they’re not even going to the, going through, the trouble of setting up a website for their business.

As far as like just an expert, let’s talk about some type of an engineering expert having a website. I don’t really care. I don’t it. Having a website could almost cause more problems than it solves because it’s just more fodder for opposing counsel to get on and get all their information or see how they’re advertising themselves or see how they’re holding themselves out to the public.

so yeah, if you’re not, if it’s not part of your business, if it’s just an expert [00:07:00] website. Unless it’s very simple that it’s just like a WordPress site that’s this is how to get ahold of me. Yeah, I would think it’d almost be like a negative.

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Ted: Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. and, continuing on something you mentioned is that some experts do only expert witness work on retirement or when they’re retired. Others do it while they’re still practicing.

Do you ever ask them, Hey, why are you doing expert witness work rather than doing something else? Like, why are you here?

Will: No, I don’t think I’ve ever asked anybody that question.

Ted: Oh, okay. Because I know sometimes they ask them, if they do it full time or how much money they do to see if they’re more

Will: sure.

Ted: hired gun. do you go through that series of questions as well?

Will: Yeah, the jury is gonna be curious. They know they’re not there out of the goodness of their hearts. but both sides, so that’s something that we generally cover in voir dire, in [00:08:00] jury selection, where we’re essentially previewing for them, or an opening like, Hey, you’re gonna hear. Experts from both sides. and it’s gonna be based on credibility and what makes the most sense. And yeah, we can’t act like, okay, the other side, oh, they’re paying their expert. That’s evil because it’s like, we’re paying our expert too. that’s how it works. You’ve gotta pay people for their time.

And so that’s really the explanation that we give them to the jury. But yeah, when we put our expert on the stand, we’re gonna, the jury’s gonna be curious. How much they’re being paid to be there. And if I don’t ask him guaranteed on cross exam, opposing counsel’s gonna ask him. So let’s just get it out of the way.

Ted: Oh, okay. Okay. And is it the more money they make, the more suspicious it is?

Will: it just depends on what their practice area is, right? So if you’re a brain surgeon, or a spine surgeon, if you’re a neuro. You’re charging, let’s call it, these days for a full day, 15 grand, 20 grand, [00:09:00] half day, 10 grand. The way that I usually hear experts explain it is, look, I have partners in my business and I’m responsible for bringing in a certain amount of income each day, and this is a lot of money, but it represents the amount of income that my clinic is losing out on by me not being at work.

Essentially is how it works now. if you’re a chiropractor or some kind of an engineer or, you’re just a solo type of an expert and that specific explanation wouldn’t make sense. you’ve gotta go with more of a look, this is essentially, this is the market rate for this type of expert work.

but yeah, as far as you get paid more that it’s more suspicious,if you’re a neurosurgeon, then $15,000 for a day. It might not be that suspicious to a jury, especially if you’re a credible witness. They’re like, that’s a ton of money, but, okay. But if you’re, not to, no shade to chiropractors, it’s just a different level of income.

If you’re a chiropractor and you’re like $15,000 [00:10:00] a day, people on the jury are gonna be like, when I go to the chiropractor, it’s 50 bucks or a hundred bucks. Like, how many people is he? they’re gonna do the math and they’re gonna be like. No, I don’t trust this person. So money comes into all of it.

But, I don’t think that the amount in and of itself is indicative of anything. It’s just subjective, to, or, it’s relative to their specialty.

Ted: Yeah. Oh, okay. Gotcha. that, that makes sense. that makes sense. And do you have. Do you have any expert horror stories of you work with an expert and you’re like, I never work, wanna work with anyone that does that again?

Will: Yeah, there’s a couple of things. So one of them is, first of all. I shouldn’t speak for everybody, but for most, for the most part, attorneys, we just want the expert to shoot us straight. we’re not hiring you to say a specific thing, [00:11:00] necessarily, right? I’m not hiring you to say absolutely this, if it’s not true.

Let’s say it’s a slip and fall case. I just want you to gimme the bad facts and I’ll deal with them. But if you twist it and fudge it and essentially lie. We hired this expert and here’s what he says, and we’re gonna go to trial and get smoked. Or I’m gonna find out during your deposition that you’re full of it.

You know what I mean? And so the horror stories that I really had is just like either one of two things. One, either they just completely make something up and they make me look like I’m an idiot too, because I’m fabricating something. ’cause I’m turning in their expert report. especially when I was a younger, inexperienced attorney, I’m just like.

Yeah, we hired this doctor and here’s what he said. or two that here’s what you should do as an expert. If you do review records, if you’re a medical expert or you do a site inspection, especially if it’s pre-litigation, but even in litigation sometimes, depending on the laws in your state, if your opinion is gonna be bad for me, [00:12:00] just call me.

Don’t, first of all, don’t put it in writing, and second of all. Don’t bill me for all the time it’s gonna take you to put it in writing. don’t send me a $10,000 bill for this 20 or 30 page report that you read that just says that my case sucks. Just call me and go. Hey, look, I could write this down.

It’s not gonna go your way. my opinions aren’t gonna be any good for you. And then we just won’t disclose them as an expert. But it really lends them a lot of credibility so that I know, okay, this person’s a straight shooter. I can trust them and I’m gonna, next time I’ll send them some, and of course, we’re gonna pay for their time to do their inspection or review the records.

Like we’re gonna make sure that their time is covered and that they’re paid. Don’t bill me to write this really long report that I’m not gonna be able to use. that you know that you’re never gonna get hired again by anybody if you do that.

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Ted: Yeah, it sounds like that happened to you. Someone billed you for a really long report.

Will: Sure. It’s happened.

Ted: Ouch. Yeah. [00:13:00] Okay. do you have any on the other side, do you have any amazing stories of experts where you’re like, this guy is the one I wish I could work with all the time. I know you can’t really hire them on every single case.

Will: I’m not thinking of necessarily anybody specific. There’s a few that come to mind that really the most important thing to me is accessibility. just being able to text an expert and be like, Hey, I just had a thought. Do you have a second? And they don’t need to be available right. Then, they’re busy professionals, but just oh yeah, let me call you on my, if they’re, if they’re doing a surgery, I’m doing surgeries, they let call you on my break or whatever.

and just being, or just text me back, we don’t even need to necessarily have a phone call. but if there’s like a lot of third parties involved, oh, we’ve gotta go through my assistant, like whatever. when it gets into the machinery of, oh, and that assistant doesn’t handle this expert work, it’s this other assistant, but I copied both of them on this email, and then you email them, that’s [00:14:00] what can get really annoying.

So for me, it’s like I said, being a straight shooter, just tell me even if it’s not good for my case, especially if it’s not good for my case, bring it up. Don’t gouge me. I’m happy to pay for your time at our agreed upon rate, if it’s a case with 200 pages in records and you wrote a five page report, don’t bill me for 20 hours, right?

I’m not an insurance company. And a lot of times these experts still get used to that with insurance companies that, insurance companies aren’t really looking at their bills and they just get used to it. They go, Hey, look, I send in this bill, it gets paid. No questions.

For personal injury lawyers or for somebody who runs a plaintiff’s practice, we’re fronting the money for all of our clients’ cases, and it’s not just from a cashflow perspective of we don’t wanna be paying too much, we’re also responsible for getting the recovery for our clients.

In other words, let’s say on a given case, let’s say it’s worth $200,000, right? the rule of thumb for case costs in general, not just experts, is that you don’t [00:15:00] wanna exceed 10%. The ultimate value of the case on case costs. So if all we can really spend on the case is 20% or $20,000, I’ve gotta be pretty strategic with whatever experts I’m gonna hire.

it’s probably one expert, on that kind of a case. I probably can’t hire two experts ’cause we’re gonna need to take some depositions and whatever else. And the problems you get into if you spend too much is that you’re gonna have to like, that money’s gonna come from somewhere. At the end of the day, you settle the case for $200,000.

You’ve already paid the expert. You’re gonna have medical bills that need to be paid, whether that’s, health insurance liens or attorney liens. I think most personal injury firms are not gonna end up taking more than their client, even if their fee percentages allow. We certainly don’t. So even though our fee is, let’s say a third or 40%, now we’re gonna have to reduce our fee because us taking 40% is gonna be more than the client because we spent too much.

Ted: So There’s all a balance there. And I think a pro tip is just to [00:16:00] shout that out to the expert ahead of time. Hey, I’m looking for a very narrow thing. Tell ’em you’ve got a budget, basically. ’cause they also don’t wanna, send you their time is valuable, and they don’t wanna send you a bill for $15,000 for you to call and go, Ooh, I actually didn’t need to review all that stuff and sorry, my paralegal sent you all that.Gotcha. And continuing on what you mentioned about, the. Insurance companies, they can just Pay out these big bills. Someone else mentioned previously that it seems like insurance companies, they’re able to hire experts and have them say whatever they want them to say, so it goes their way. I was curious, how do you think those experts actually. Because it sounds like they’re lying, right? But how do you think they actually still have a business when it sounds like experts that get hired by insurance companies just lie all the time.

Will: Yeah, that’s [00:17:00] painting with a really broad brush. It’s probably unfair. here’s the way that I see it and understanding that there are certainly people who lie and make stuff up. I think it’s a matter of perspective. and certain experts just look at the world a different way. For example, I did insurance defense work for about seven years, and we would consistently hire one expert, at this firm that I was at.

He’s a spine surgery expert. Very well credentialed, very qualified, and he is an amazing expert witness on the stand. I don’t know how many cases he’s reviewed over the years, that just in the ones that I was involved in, but certainly hundreds, I never once saw him opine that. A spine surgery was related to the car crash or to the slip and fall.

Never, like not once. 0% of the time, he just doesn’t believe it. Now, he could be a liar. It could just be that’s the way that he sees the world in his [00:18:00] experience of medicine. These things just aren’t caused by that. I think it’s also that it’s a gray area, There’s no hard and fast.

okay, if they have these three findings. Then it’s definitely related to the car crash or the slip and fall. And there’s nothing on MRI that is dated, that Hey, this is from before or this is from after. the way I’ve heard Keith Mitnick explain it, who’s a success, very successful trial attorney for Morgan and Morgan is that the way he explains it to the jury is, ’cause you don’t wanna go out there and just say Hey, this other expert that they hired is a liar.

He’ll say that. Their competitive nature got the best of them. that hey, this is an adversarial proceeding and they go up against these other experts all the time and and they wanna win and look, maybe their competitive nature got the best of ’em on this one. but as far as them still having a business, yeah, if you’re an insurance company and you can just guarantee that if you pay, X amount of money for their time, that they’re gonna come in and give you the opinion that would help you out.

that’s, that, that’s, [00:19:00] you’re gonna do that every single time.

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Ted: Yeah. Gotcha. so it’s not fair to say all insurance experts do that. It does happen, but who knows how

first of all, I, you know, I, I only have the experience with, with the ones I’ve had experience with. Yeah.

Will: and, you know, it cuts both ways, right? cuts, cuts both ways, certainly. so, no, you know, I, that’s kind of where I stand on it.

Ted: Gotcha. Outside of the technical expertise of the expert, maybe they’re a neurosurgeon What are other qualities, maybe other more soft skills that you look for when talking with an expert?

Will: Yeah, so I mentioned one is just accessibility, being a good communicator, being able to text or hop on a phone call from time to time. two is, you don’t want somebody who’s super awkward. they’re gonna need to talk to a jury. Now certain things, certain doctors, sometimes it can lend [00:20:00] them almost credibility.

They can’t be just unlikable, But sometimes if people are a little too slick, a jury can be like, this guy’s a little too charismatic. I’d believe anything that he says, you might want somebody that’s a little more, for lack of a better term,a little more nerdy.

I think there’s honestly a big technology part of it, and it’s just a generational thing. So this doesn’t mean that they’re a bad expert, but I can think of a particular expert that we use that, like everything takes him a long time. He pipes out his reports or he dictates them and they have to be, transcribed by somebody else, but he doesn’t have that person in his office.

And by the way, dictating your reports and having her transcribed, everyone does that. So that’s not a, that in and of itself is not a big deal. But just,he doesn’t text. It takes him a long time to get back. He doesn’t quite really understand what’s going on.

the industry has left him behind a little bit and everything is just a little antiquated. so to sum that all up, I would just say that somebody who’s easy to deal with, somebody who is just, that you can talk to and go Hey man, [00:21:00] here’s what I’m thinking on this case, that is that supported by the medical records or is that supported by the evidence?

And that they’ll tell me their thoughts and they’re not worried about oh man, I, I’ve really gotta get paid on this particular case and really gotta ring this one up, That they’re open to, Hey, this is gonna be a long-term relationship. We’re gonna use you on other cases. We really just need you to shoot us straight.

So just being easy to deal with.

Ted: Yeah, and you mentioned something interesting. if someone is too slick or too charisma. Like the jury can pick up on that how, like what, what would be described as too charismatic or too slick, where you’re like, oh, this expert might not be the right fit.

Will: A couple of things. One,

Ted: when they come in, I’ve seen doctors come in dressed up, like in their scrubs. Like they just came from surgery. I don’t like that. ’cause I think the jury’s gimme a break. You know what I mean? Like really you just came from surgery. I think just a [00:22:00] good suit, like nothing flashy.

Will: I’ve also seen doctors come in with, purple plaid suit and a crazy tie and they’ve got, their $40,000 watch on. That’s gold. I think that’s hard to pull off too. ’cause they’re just like, this guy’s just a baller. like he, he’s just in this thing for the money.

He’s got a, he’s got a lifestyle to support. also I think it’s really important both in deposition and, especially at trial. And this is for your client, for any witness, but especially for expert witnesses. to the extent that they’re able, they need to show opposing counsel the same respect that they show me.

Otherwise they’re gonna lose credibility. So if I get up and ask ’em questions and they’re, they smile and they’re, really nice and oh yeah. And then,opposing counsel gets up and all of a sudden, oh, I don’t understand your question. I don’t know what you mean by that. And they’re just become obstinate and difficult.

They really lose credibility with the jury. There’s a way to disagree with opposing counsel and stick to your guns. And you don’t need to have a crazy smile on your face and act like you like them [00:23:00] because that’s not gonna read as genuine either. But you can’t just all of a sudden code switch and you’re like, I was this really nice guy when the one lawyer was up who was paying me.

And now the other lawyer gets up and I’m very difficult and I don’t understand anything. I need every question repeated,that’s just not gonna go well.

Ted: Oh wow. Wow. So he would be trying to make the opposing side look bad, but he’s just making himself look bad. Gotcha. Gotcha. Well, Will, thank you so much for being here.

Will: I wish we would have all the time in the world so I could ask you more questions.

Ted: But I wanna stay true. I said it was only gonna last 30 minutes, so just thank you. Thank you so much

Will: Yeah. Awesome. Thanks for your time, Ted.

Ted: All right. See you.

Will: See you.

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