Allison Guidette is the VP and General Manager of Westlaw Litigation, of which Westlaw Round Table Group is a proud part. She recently took some time to answer some questions for me about the future of WRTG, and some broader insights into the legal industry.

"Why this foray into the expert witness referral industry?

Westlaw Round Table Group is a natural and valuable addition to Thomson Reuter's expanding suite of integrated litigation content, tools and services -- collectively called Westlaw Litigator. Westlaw Litigator is designed to meet the evolving needs of litigators by helping them at each stage of a case to optimize productivity and produce the highest quality work product in the least amount of time.

We repeatedly go back to our clients to ask them how else Thomson Reuters can support them. In the past year, we have heard repeated request for better, faster access to the world's best expert witnesses. Clients tell us that finding ideal experts can be time consuming and frustrating. In response, Thomson Reuters began looking for a partner, which brought us to the door of Round Table Group, the premier expert witness referral business in the legal industry. We of course acquired Round Table Group - now called Westlaw Round Table Group (WRTG) - about three months ago.

Our clients have expressed great enthusiasm for this new line of business and the quality and service they can receive from the WRTG team. Most critically, they share that leveraging WRTG saves them valuable time - that they can better deploy in legal thinking and writing - and that WRTG finds them superior experts than they would be able to uncover on their own.

"Can you offer some insight into industry trends?"

We perceive a number of critical trends impacting the legal industry, including:
-    Cautious optimism by large and small firms that we have "bottomed out" in most practice areas and work is beginning to pick up. That said, litigation is recovering more slowly than other practice areas - such as in corporate - but it is starting to grow again.
-    Continued focus by corporate clients on getting value from outside counsel. Even when legal budgets are freer and litigation more voluminous, we anticipate that corporate legal departments will remain focused on getting more from each hour worked by their counsel. Also, GCs are less willing to pay junior associates to learn how to practice law, forcing law firms to rethink their business models somewhat. There is some pressure to explore "alternative fee arrangements" but our sense is that most corporations are not interested in fixed-fee projects for anything but truly routine matters. What they want is value and predictability.
-    We expect MDLs and class actions to grow significantly in the next year. Certainly the Gulf oil spill is one example but we have seen a significant uptick in MDLs in the past few years which we do not see abating. Related, we see smaller firms remaining focused on their niche practice areas but banding together in loose teams to support the needs of large, complex cases and competing with bigger firms.
-    E-discovery continues to drain litigation resources. That said, firms are again beginning to invest in tools to manage e-discovery. They want tools that integrate together, making it easy to toggle from one stage of a case (say, legal research) to another (say, case analysis). This is very consistent with the strategy of Thomson Reuters, where our litigation technologies interrelate in very meaningful ways to ease the work of our litigation clients.

"Anything new our experts can expect to see in the weeks/months ahead rising from our merger?" 

I think that the merger of Thomson Reuters and Round Table Group creates great opportunities for both organizations and our expert partners. Certainly the Westlaw brand and resources will help to fuel growth of Round Table Group, creating more interesting cases for our expert partners. Additionally, West is historically a publishing house, so there may be more avenues to explore with our partners in creating content. Finally, we have plans - with the approval of our expert partners - to leverage Westlaw.com and the new platform, WestlawNext, to expose our experts to literally millions of attorneys worldwide. This should create great opportunities for interesting cases.

Mark Swansiger  got to shake a lot of hands at the International Trademark Association (INTA) conference in Boston last week, with WRTG's display being placed so strategically at the front of the Westlaw Village this year.  It was a good year for Westlaw at the INTA conference as a steady stream of clients arrived for appointments, or just wandered into the (time to boast) clearly-most-cool-vendor-display in the vendor hall.

We call the display 'The Village', and joke that it should have its own zip code and mayor. If there is a mayor of the Village, its veteran Westlaw sales rep extraordinaire, Bob. Seriously, this guy is so good, that at last year's (pre-merger) INTA in Seattle, when I walked into the Westlaw Village to nab some swag, he pitched me on Docket (a Westlaw product) that I ended up subscribing to 3 weeks later...and have been exceptionally happy with ever since.

For me, (there Sunday and Monday) I got to meet up with some long-time colleagues, and spend some time talking with new ones. There was a uniform sense of optimism, both in the conference itself, and amongst the broader intellectual property expert witness industry represented there. My best three at the Boston INTA conference? The Halvah that one vendor was giving away, the story I heard about an entrepreneur who signed a napkin contract eventually worth 10s of millions, and the word from so many of the IP folks who stopped to chat, that litigation in their field is increasing. Look for the next post, on IP litigation trends gleaned from INTA.

  

 

In the last few days I have been reading a LOT of expert witness testimony, while working with my new colleagues at Westlaw. For me, this is just fun, digging into thousands of collected and formatted expert depositions in the Westlaw collection, so as to ascertain litigation trends for future expert recruiting. I was in a sort of expert witness Disneyland.

Amidst all these documents that collectively painted a picture of specific litigation trends, certain passages would stand out from the usual high level of expert responses to examination, of which this is one. I offer it as evidence on the importance of early, frequent, and clear communication between expert and client.

Expert's statement: "So, but I'm not trying to say that I'm some sort of expert, I've been trained, I've been educated or anything like that.  Follow what I'm saying?"

Yes, absolutely.

Expert witnesses travel. A lot. Whether visiting a client, appearing in a court room, or traveling for an on-site analysis, Experts buy plane tickets, stay in hotels, eat meals, pay for taxis, pay for internet, parking, and so much more. Many experts negotiate to submit these as expenses to their clients, when they are case-related. However, for experts who absorb all or some of these costs, there are allowable deductions you can claim on your taxes.

You can deduct ordinary and necessary expenses you have when you travel away from home on business. The type of expense you can deduct depends on the facts and your circumstances, according to IRS publication 463, but industry trade conferences can generally be deducted, providing you can demonstrate that your attendance benefits your trade or business.

Of course, I am not a professional tax expert, so please consult your tax pro.

Expert witnesses rely on their spoken and written word to convey certain truths to juries. They are usually cross- examined on these words. Great experts know how to handle a good cross examination, by sticking to the facts, keeping their answers focused and to what they are sure of. But maybe that is not enough anymore.

Body language, as analyzed via video transcripts, is becoming an increasingly common tool, and not just in the court room, but sometimes months in advance by lawyers interviewing and retaining experts. By video taping the interview, clients can use a whole range of visual body language clues to ascertain the expert's comfort and confidence on areas of expertise.

"The words can all be spot on, but if a witness's body says I'm really uncomfortable with my position, the expert can immediately undermine a case,"

the whole story here.

Many Westlaw Round Table Group expert witnesses have home offices, as discussed in previous postings, reflecting a growing trend in telecommuting. Homepreneurism saves money and time commuting, may promote greater efficiency, and might permit certain tax deductions based on your home office. Maryam K. Ansari provides some excellent insight into the home office deductions, and risks. The American Bar Association Family Legal Guide offers some good advice on home office deductions as well. With tax day rapidly approaching, you should check this out!   

We're pleased to announce that Round Table Group is now part of Thomson Reuters, the leader in providing intelligent information to businesses and professionals. Round Table Group will be aligned with the Thomson Reuters litigation businesses and will complement the expert witness content on Westlaw, the preferred online legal research service for lawyers.

The combination of Westlaw's expert witness content and Round Table Group's services will provide our litigator customers with an enhanced service and a more comprehensive, integrated litigation solution, and will allow us to bring our consulting services to an expanded client base through Westlaw.

We expect the transition to go smoothly. Experts can continue to turn to the Round Table Group's expert services team and other business contacts for information and service.

I was speaking with an expert in DC one month back, a former college friend, who regularly bids on government contracts. He was interested in becoming an expert witness and was picking my brain in exchange for a meaty cheeseburger like only the DC Chophouse can serve. I told him that experts set their own prices, and that an interesting new trend was that many expert witnesses are now negotiating that rate more, considering the value of building a business relationship with a particular client.

His reply is interesting to me. In his line of work, the projects he wants to see usually come with a maximum dollar amount the client is willing to pay. I wonder if this approach might work in the expert witness industry? Could total cost of the project (report, etc) be predetermined? Ex: Experts do a report for a predetermined fee. What do you think? Does that model seem useful for the expert witness industry?





 

 Automotive recall experts, warranty experts and automotive engineers of all types could soon see increased work due to the flurry of probable lawsuits against Toyota. A CNN Money article notes that the cost to Toyota from settlements could even be higher than the estimated $2 billion price tag for handling just the recalls.In addition, with the huge pressures the larger automobile industry faces, and the threat of even more major car brands going out of business, we see a growing demand for such experts.

I love London, and there are a couple of really good conferences our UK members (and any experts traveling abroad) might want to consider attending.

This year's Annual Bond Solon Expert Witness Conference is Friday the 12th of November, 2010 at the Church House Conference Centre in London. This is I believe the largest gathering of expert witnesses in the UK, and offers some terrific opportunities to develop your skills, grow your network, and build your business. Bond Salon offers training for expert witnesses with non-legal backgrounds. With a stellar reputation, this should be an exceptionally good conference. You can sign up now, and get a special 'early bird' price. 

You can develop your expert witness business by attending the "Marketing and Managing your Expert Witness Business" seminar on February 24th, 2010, presented by the Expert Witness Institute, a non-profit advocacy and training organization based in London aimed at working with expert witnesses.

The Society for Expert Witnesses is holding their annual conference on May 14-15th in Northampton. This non-profit organization is run 'by experts for exerts', and, among other benefits, offers a new expert mentoring program.

Maybe I will see you there?