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Play Nice with Experts – And Help Yourself
BullsEye Newsletter: July 2005
 We all heard it as kids: "Share your toys." But
what about in our professional lives? Law firms have sophisticated "toys"
– hardware, software and resources – that experts
often lack. Share these with your experts and you will see the
return in lower costs and more certain results.
You hire experts for one reason – their expertise.
But before they ever get to the point of applying that expertise,
experts may spend valuable time on peripheral tasks that law
firms are better equipped to handle.
Consider, for example, Ken Thompson, a mechanical engineer and
principal of OKEN Consulting, based in San Jose, Calif. An expert
in RFID technology and the owner of several patents in the field,
Thompson often provides consulting services to law firms in patent
cases.
Particularly at the outset, these cases can be labor-intensive,
requiring Thompson to acquire and scrutinize dozens of patents.
Beyond the time he spends merely searching for and downloading
patents, he might require up to 30 minutes per patent to scour
it for occurrences of key words and phrases.
Sharing resources readily at their disposal, law firms could
help ensure that they get the full value of Thompson's expertise
without wasting any of his time. For example, they could:
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Supply high-quality materials. If
the law firm has access to high-quality PDF versions of the
patents, provide them to the expert at the outset. You would
make the expert's work easier, more accurate and more efficient.
This holds true for any field in which the firm has access
to higher-quality resources and materials.
In providing these electronic files, Thompson adds, the law
firm should take the simple step of putting them on an FTP
server for the expert to download or of burning them to a
CD. Otherwise, the expert may have to spend as much as an
hour just downloading files.
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Share tools. When patent
cases turn on claims construction, experts focus their attention
on the meanings of particular words, scouring claims to see
how those words were used. An expert can spend substantial
time going through each patent, highlighting occurrences
of key words.
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Make best use of technology. Don't
send large electronic files to an expert by e-mail. Load
them to an FTP server or burn them onto a CD. Let the expert
focus on analysis, not bandwidth.
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Share software tools. As
one example, law firms may have high-end software that allows
them to search and index PDF files. Make this available for
your expert to use – ideally through a Web interface –
and you dramatically cut the expert's time and enhance the
expert's accuracy.
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Provide a blueprint. With
the benefit of both technology and experience, lawyers are
able to anticipate key dates and events in a case. Experts,
on the other hand, sometimes find themselves left in the
dark. Early on, give the expert a blueprint laying out the
overall course of a case and key events and deadlines involving
the expert.
These examples draw from patent cases, but the point holds
true for any field. Share the tools and resources already
at your disposal, and you will enable the expert to focus
on sharing expertise -- delivering greater value at less
cost.
IMS
Expert Services is the premier expert witness and
litigation consultant search firm in the legal industry. IMS
Expert Services is focused exclusively on providing custom
expert witness search services to attorneys. We are proud to
be the choice of 91 of the AmLaw Top 100. Call us at 877-838-8464
or visit us at www.ims-expertservices.com.
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