Vocational Expert Methodology Standards: A Practitioner Guide

Vocational expert testimony must satisfy the governing court's reliability framework: testimony grounded in sufficient facts or data, derived from accepted principles and methods, and reliably applied to the facts. Well-documented transferable skills analysis, labor market survey, and use of accepted references (DOT, O*NET, BLS) routinely meet these standards. Attorneys are responsible for confirming the governing framework against primary sources.