New Jersey Expert Witness Testimony Services

A New Jersey testimony engagement begins with a report that can stand as the expert's disclosure and ends with the expert on the record. The report, whether vocational, life care or forensic economic, records the method it followed, the records and data it drew on and every opinion it reaches, and it is served as the disclosure the forum requires. Deposition testimony then covers the methodology, the data sources and the opinions in that report, question by question, and trial testimony presents the same opinions on direct examination and answers cross-examination on their bases. Where the court permits it and counsel arrange it, deposition or trial testimony is given as remote testimony by video, on the same record and with the same exhibits. A rebuttal engagement addresses an opposing expert's report: the expert reads the opposing analysis against the same records, states where its data, its assumptions or its method depart from the file, and gives that rebuttal in a written report or from the stand. Records or an opposing report produced after the report is served are met with a supplemental opinion.

Opinions are offered in the forums that hear New Jersey matters, and each forum sets the format. In the Law Division of the Superior Court of New Jersey the vocational, life care and economic opinions are given in personal injury, medical malpractice, wrongful death and employment actions, at deposition before trial and at trial before the jury or the court. In the Chancery Division, Family Part the testimony addresses a spouse's earning capacity in matrimonial matters. Before the New Jersey Division of Workers' Compensation the vocational opinion is given at the district office that hears the claim. In federal employment and disability matters the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey takes the same opinions at its Camden, Newark or Trenton courthouse, on the schedule the court's order sets. The Superior Court's county vicinages and their courthouses are listed on the New Jersey state page.

The three disciplines testify to one set of facts. The vocational opinion states what work the person can obtain and hold with the documented restrictions and what it pays; the life care plan states the future care the medical record supports and its cost; the economic opinion carries both into the present value of the loss. Testimony is given by the roster's credentialed experts, each on the discipline of the report that expert wrote, so that the vocational expert is not asked to price a plan and the economist is not asked to rate employability. Every figure the testimony relies on traces to a source the report names, which lets the opposing expert reproduce the analysis and lets cross-examination test the opinion on its merits rather than on its inputs.

Preparation with retaining counsel identifies the opinions to be presented, the bases for each and the exhibits and demonstratives that carry them, and anticipates the cross-examination. Deposition follows service of the report on the case calendar, and trial testimony follows the court's calendar, so the report is retained first and the testimony is scheduled around it. The report is organized to the disclosure requirements of the forum in which the matter is pending. Attorneys confirm the governing rule for their case. KWVRS prepares its New Jersey testimony engagements from its Hackensack headquarters. Plaintiff and defense.