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Continued... Page 4 > Expert Witness at Trial

This was the only thing I touched upon in presenting this surgeon's qualifications, which allowed the jury to see him as a devoted humanitarian. Another surgeon I called as an expert in a burn case described the wrenching experiences he went through as an army surgeon in Viet Nam , which cause him to dedicate his career to burn victims. This human interest approach allowed both of these experts to quickly pass the first 30 second ìscreeningî by the jurors mentioned previously. The respective juries bonded to these experts immediately and believed every word of their testimony. The underlying principle at work is that even the strongest resume in the world cannot redeem a boring, uninspired or otherwise tepid performance from the witness stand. Demeanor and human interest are much more important than the minute details of an expert's resume.

How Your Expert Looks Affects Their Credibility

There is also a ìcentral castingî aspect to expert witnesses which must be taken into account. It is a sad but true principle of human nature that how a person looks is an important factor in determining how much credibility is given to what they say. Someone who ìlooks the partî they are assigned to play as an expert witness stands a greater change of persuading the jury to their point of view.

A case in point was an asbestos product case of mine where Dr. G. S. was our medical expert witness. The defense had little respect for Dr. G. S. because from a scientific point of view, his medical analysis of the case could be challenged. Yet, the defense failed to take into account the fact that this doctor met the jurors' expectations of what a credible physician/expert should look like. He was tall and good looking with a full mane of white hair and had a British accent. He also had a droll, dry, self-deprecating wit which endeared him further to the jurors. He did not place himself above them. The defense lawyer went after this doctor hammer and tongs in cross examination with a five foot high stack of medical textbooks, but none of this made any impression on the jurors. They liked this witness, he was seemingly articulate and they judged what he was saying to be credible, even though the defense made a spirited argument that Dr. G. S. was out of step with the mainstream of the medical community.

On the reverse side of the coin, the defense in that same asbestos product liability case brought in Dr. D. S., who was on a medical school faculty, with many publications and a current grasp of medical research. However, this doctor suffered from several handicaps, the worst of which was he talked down to the jurors in an obvious, condescending manner, telling them at one point that he did not believe that lay people were qualified to make medical decisions such as they were being asked to do in the particular case. This rankled the jurors to no end, who had taken an oath to do their best to listen to the evidence and render a just verdict. This doctor also suffered from looking too much like the prototypical egghead, mad scientist, with a high, square forehead, no sense of humor and square, black Clark Kent type glasses with thick lenses.

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