Tips for Creating Clear, Strong Expert Reports

Insurance claims expert Kevin Quinley has been retained on over 130 cases and authored over 600 articles and 10 books pertaining to claims, insurance, risk management and litigation management. Below are some of his best tips for attorneys who want to ensure that their expert witness can create the best expert reports. 

Leave Ample Time

Scheduling orders and the nature of the discovery process often result in an expert needing to meet extremely tight deadlines. To get ahead of those deadlines, seek to retain an expert witness as early as possible. The more time an expert has to prepare an expert report, the stronger that report will be. Quinley describes how giving an expert witness more time will benefit the attorney’s case: 

I quote the Nancy Reagan anti-drug slogan, “Just Say No,” because you are faced as an expert many times with those eleventh-hour, hair on fire requests to review a couple thousand pages of documents or more, analyze them, come to some conclusions, draft, edit and proof your report, collaborate with counsel and produce a polished first-rate work product . . . . I want as long a runway as possible. . . . I like at least 30 days if not more from the date I am engaged. . . . Even then, that is aggressive . . . to allow yourself enough time so that you can do something other than microwave an opinion. We are experts. We are not short-order cooks. . . . The more time I have, and I think I speak for a lot of experts, the better job I can do for the lawyer, the law firm, and the client. 

Bottom line: great expert reports require time.

Communicate Expectations

Experts need to know what they are to address in their reports, substantively, as well as whether there are any requirements with respect to the size and format of the final work product. For example, if there are multiple experts addressing adjacent topics, be sure to explain to each expert whether and how the scope of each report is limited. Quinley explains just how important this is:

[Understand] what your report has to address. There may be issues that you do not need to address, or maybe another expert is addressing those, or that is something that retaining counsel does not want to do. Get clarity with retaining counsel. Also, get clarity on whether the written work product is a full-blown Rule 26 report or a bullet point kind of disclosure.

Furthermore, let the expert know if you want to see drafts. Quinley notes, “some of [the attorneys] say, ‘I do not want to see your drafts,’ maybe because of discoverability issues or whatever. Others say, ‘yes, I would like to see a draft.’ So, before you send a draft to the retaining counsel, be clear on whether they want that or not.”  

Appearance Matters

Experts typically depend on attorneys to perform a final review of the report and make sure that it looks professional, is typo-free, and is laid out in a manner that makes it easy to follow. Quinley explains, “[I am too] close to the manuscript. That is where retaining counsel takes a look at it or somebody else takes a look at it. You develop mental blind spots.” An attorney and an expert working together collaboratively can lead to the elimination of any blind spots either of them may have.

While there is a lot that goes into generating a clear, strong expert report, these three tips—leaving ample time for the expert to complete the report, communicating expectations, and assisting with editing the report—will help ensure that clients receive the best expert report for their money.