New Jersey Vocational Expert Witness Services

Vocational expert evidence is heard in four New Jersey forums. The Law Division of the Superior Court of New Jersey hears the civil actions, including personal injury and employment claims, in which post-injury employability is at issue. The Chancery Division, Family Part hears the family matters in which a spouse's earning capacity is in question; the New Jersey matrimonial page describes that assessment. The U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, which sits in Camden, Newark and Trenton, hears federal employment and disability matters. The New Jersey Division of Workers' Compensation, within the Department of Labor and Workforce Development, hears workers' compensation claims at its district offices.

For past lost earnings, New Jersey's model jury charge on loss of earnings asks jurors to think about any special skills the plaintiff has and whether there were other jobs available that the plaintiff was able to do, and says the plaintiff must have tried to minimize the loss, though all that is required are reasonable efforts and ordinary care. Before economic expert testimony, jurors are told they will be the final judges of the reliability of an expert's projections of future economic losses; after bottom-line expert testimony, they may consider some, all or none of the expert's opinions. The transferable skills analysis speaks to the special skills, and the labor market survey to the other jobs available.

Yes. KWVRS accepts New Jersey vocational engagements from plaintiff and defense counsel, and the methodology is identical whichever side commissions the work: the same records, the same transferable skills analysis and the same published wage data. The retaining party chooses the question; the evidence in the file decides the answer, which may be that little or no earning capacity was lost.

A New Jersey vocational evaluation measures employability, earning capacity and transferable skills. The evaluator reviews the medical, educational, vocational and employment records, interviews the claimant, administers standardized testing where appropriate and completes a transferable skills analysis and a labor market survey. Wages come from the Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics program and unemployment rates from the Local Area Unemployment Statistics program, both published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, for the area where the claimant lives and works. The vocational evaluation guide describes what the evaluation consists of and what its report contains.

When physical and neuropsychiatric impairments constitute at least 75 percent of total disability, factors other than those impairments may be considered in determining permanent total disability, as the New Jersey Division of Workers' Compensation's 2019 Law Day paper quotes the workers' compensation statute. The paper says odd lot cases can be developed using vocational experts on criteria including intelligence, training and education, that the report should be identified on the Pretrial Memorandum or the court can bar the theory, and that once a prima facie case is established the burden is on the respondent to prove that appropriate employment actually exists for the injured worker. Attorneys confirm the rule that governs their case.

A full report is typically 30 to 60 days from receipt of complete records, depending on records volume and whether an in-person evaluation is performed. Rush timelines are accommodated case by case when requested at engagement. Before any work begins, counsel receives a written fee schedule and an estimate for the requested scope, and the engagement agreement sets the fee and its payment terms; testimony is priced on the fee schedule apart from the report. The vocational expert cost and engagement guide explains how an engagement is structured and what drives its cost.

KWVRS is headquartered at 1 University Plaza, Suite 302, Hackensack, New Jersey, in Bergen County, and prepares its New Jersey vocational evaluations from that office; the telephone number is (201) 343-0700. The firm also maintains a Richmond, Virginia office, reached at (804) 282-4199.

A New Jersey vocational report is organized to the disclosure requirements of the forum in which the matter is pending. It documents the methodology, the records and data sources relied on and each opinion, so that it can be served as the expert's disclosure and the opposing expert can reproduce the analysis. The New Jersey expert disclosure page summarizes the state's practice; attorneys confirm the governing rule and its timing for their case.