An Expert Career

File Photo Paul D. Ellner was nearing retirement from his professorship in microbiology at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons when he stumbled on his second career "quite by accident." A colleague who had enlisted as an expert witness in a legal case was overwhelmed with work and passed the job on to Ellner. "I found it very challenging, very interesting," says Ellner, who has been hired as an expert witness in more than 70 cases since his retirement from Columbia almost 14 years ago. Besides supplementing his income and keeping him active in science, expert witness work has added a new line of skills to those Ellner learned in the laboratory: a combination of psychology, theatrics, and law. Scientific expertise is no guarantee of effective communication in the courtroom, says Ellner, who reads books and attends seminars to stay sharp on the rules for qualifying as an expert in a given discipline. Solid academic credentials and publications in peer-reviewed journals are the basics of winning approval from a trial judge to testify as an expert witness. A 1993 US Supreme Court decision, Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals,1 gave judges the job of screening experts to make sure junk science does not find its way into the courtroom. It replaced a ruling that allowed the experts to present in court ideas that are generally accepted in the scientific community. Many expected the new rules to invite a flood of novel scientific ideas to be brought to the attention of juries. But that is not what happened, according to a study released in 2001 by the Rand Institute of Civil Justice. Judges took their jobs of vetting experts seriously, and in the first years after the new ruling, they knocked scientific experts out of cases more frequently than they did before the Daubert decision. Then the tide turned, as witnesses such as Ellner became more expert at working with the Daubert rules. Now a number of Web sites, such as DaubertOnTheWeb.com, offer practical advice on living with the rules. Much of the advice is geared to lawyers, making it even more valuable to scientists, who need to negotiate fees and terms. Fledgling witnesses can learn to watch out for arrangements that pay them less if the judge finds their science too cutting-edge to admit into court. Over the years, Ellner has developed a retainer agreement that attorneys must sign before he gives their material more than a brief glance. "It says what I'm going to do, what I'm not going to do, and how problems in the consulting relationship will be resolved." To make sure the science about which he is testifying comes across, Ellner sometimes scripts the questions for the lawyer who hires him. Of course, when the lawyer on the opposing side gets up to cross-examine him, the veteran Ellner knows what questions are coming. "They will ask, 'How much are you being paid for your testimony?'" Ellner says, "And you say, 'I'm not being paid for my testimony. I'm being paid for my time, the same as you are.'" Peg Brickley (pegbrickley@hotmail.com) is a freelancer writer in Philadelphia. 1. Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, 113 S.Ct. 2786, (1993). function sendData() { document.frm.pathName.value = location.pathname; result = false if (document.frm.score[0].checked) result = true; if (document.frm.score[1].checked) result = true; if (document.frm.score[2].checked) result = true; if (document.frm.score[3].checked) result = true; if (document.frm.score[4].checked) result = true; if (!result) alert("Please select") return result; } .myradio{background-color : #94bee5} Please indicate on a 1 - 5 scale how strongly you would recommend this article to your colleagues? Not recommended 1 2 3 4 5 Highly recommended Please register your vote

An Expert Career

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