How Expert Witnesses Can Be the Key to Winning a Personal Injury Case

One aspect of Mike Morse Injury Law Firm’s unmatched success in winning over $1.5 billion for our clients is our ability to bring in respected expert witnesses to testify about the extent and causes of victims’ injuries. Over the years, we’ve handled countless cases where the testimony of professionals from a variety of fields has yielded a virtual slam dunk for our clients. That’s because the unbiased, objective testimony provided by these reputable expert witnesses is both persuasive and powerful – and it gives jurors and judges alike a clear perspective into the causes of our clients’ medical conditions. As a result, we involve expert witnesses in just about every personal injury case we handle.

What Kinds of Expert Witnesses Are Most Effective?

Among the most helpful expert witnesses are trusted members of your own medical team. This includes the doctors, nurses, surgeons, specialists, radiologists, physical therapists, emergency medical technicians, psychologists, chiropractors, and other professionals who provide you treatment ranging from immediate first aid to long-term therapeutic care and rehabilitation services. Michigan law requires that medical practitioners who testify as expert witnesses must be licensed and/or board certified, which helps ensure their testimony is dependable and credible. We’ve found that by having impartial medical experts testify about your long-term prognosis and the treatments required to regain quality of life, it helps paint a comprehensive picture of the injuries you’ve sustained, the physical, mental, and emotional challenges you’re experiencing, and the ways you and your loved ones have been impacted. Expert witnesses can help humanize your pain for the members of the jury who will ultimately decide how you should be compensated.

Expert Witnesses Aren’t Always Medical Professionals

People who work in the medical field aren’t the only professionals we’ll likely call upon to testify on your behalf. We also frequently engage the services of expert witnesses in areas like traffic control, civil engineering, mechanical engineering, and even biomedical engineering. We often bring in occupational therapists, forensic scientists, county medical examiners, and even accountants or other financial specialists who can testify about the lifelong monetary impact of your injuries, including loss of future income and cost of continuing medical care.

We don’t stop there. Among the more specialized expert witnesses we involve in our cases are accident reconstruction professionals who study the circumstances surrounding a collision and help us determine contributing factors. Many of the certified accident reconstructionists we call upon are former police officers who’ve been vetted by the Accreditation Commission for Traffic Accident Reconstruction (ACTAR). Thanks to this organization’s certification and continuing education process, we can access professionals who can clearly determine the cause of our clients’ injuries, and effectively demonstrate their findings in a courtroom setting. 10 of the 28 ACTAR-certified reconstructionists practicing in Michigan are Michigan State Police officers. The remainder serve in other law enforcement agencies, work independently, or are employed by firms that specialize in this uncommon field.

Beyond those relatively local experts, we sometimes need to call in professionals from across the country to help effectively build our clients’ cases.

Importantly, you may find it reassuring that in none of these cases did our clients have to pay anything up-front for expert witnesses to appear in court. It’s all part of the promise we make to every client: You pay nothing unless we win. We discussed in length how this benefits our clients in a recent article describing the value of working with us on a “contingency” basis.

What Kind of Expert Witnesses Do Insurers Typically Use?

You should know that the attorneys working on the defendant’s behalf will likely bring in their own expert witnesses to testify against you. In general, insurance companies rely upon what’s known as an “Independent Medical Examination” to help make their case before the jury. These individuals are doctors paid by the insurance company to evaluate your condition and then testify on their findings in court – a fact that might make them appear to have a conflict of interest (though they would obviously deny that allegation).

We believe this kind of testimony can be effectively dealt with by asking professionals with no vested interest in the outcome of the case to speak on behalf of our clients. That’s because when a jury hears from a highly trained, impartial expert witness, they are – more often than not – swayed favorably in the direction of the injured person’s side of the story. This is especially true in the case of your treating medical providers. They were hired to help you recover from your injuries, not as expert witnesses. The fact that they are later needed to testify on your behalf is not because they are a hired gun like an ”independent medical examiner.” They are simply there to establish the injuries and treatment that occurred in your case while they were treating you.

Consider the psychology at work here. Imagine you’re looking for a new car. If a salesperson at the dealership praises a particular vehicle’s dependability, you might take their claims with a grain of salt — after all, they’re trying to sell you something, and stand to benefit financially from the transaction. But if reliable friends or family members offer unsolicited praise about their vehicles, you’re far more likely to believe what they have to say. The same holds true with a neutral expert witness who testifies about your condition: their credentials boost your credibility.

Let Us Put Our Experts – and Our Legal Expertise – to Work on Your Behalf

It all comes down to this – we win for our clients because we have developed long standing expertise in handling personal injury litigation, class action lawsuits, medical malpractice cases, and more. We are well versed in getting our clients the compensation they deserve for their injuries, which includes finding the right kind of objective and professional expert witnesses to testify on your behalf. To learn more about how we work for you, all you need to do is pick up the phone and call us at 855-MIKE-WINS (855-645-3946). We can also get thousands of satisfied clients to testify on our behalf. Just check what your fellow Michiganders have to say about us on Google! Then get in touch with one of our expert attorneys today.

Content checked by Mike Morse, personal injury attorney with Mike Morse Injury Law Firm. Mike Morse is the founder of Mike Morse Law Firm, the largest personal injury law firm in Michigan. Since being founded in 1995, Mike Morse Law Firm has grown to 150 employees, served 25,000 clients, and collected more than $1 billion for victims of auto, truck and motorcycle accidents. The main office is in Southfield, MI but you can also find us in Detroit, Sterling Heights and many other locations.