Courts often need to determine the impact of an incident on the capacity of an individual to be employed and to earn wages. Rehabilitation counselors frequently are utilized in the legal field to provide this future-earning-capacity assessment. In fact, this method of assessing earning capacity is most acceptable within the parameters of legal requirements developed by recent court decisions.

This book explains the basic concepts of earning-capacity assessment and identifies the considerations that go into determining an earning-capacity assessment. In addition, the book provides a concise explanation of why rehabilitation counseling provides a legally sufficient basis for determining earning capacity. It takes into account the requirements placed on expert methodology by courts since the Daubert and Kumho decisions, which concerned expert opinions not based on accepted methodology. This book also provides an historical perspective of rehabilitation counseling and illustrates how rehabilitation counseling utilizes accepted practice's and methodology to make an earning-capacity assessment. In addition, it provides related information authored by economic experts and rehabilitation-counseling experts.

Any lawyer who wishes to develop an in-depth understanding of earning-capacity assessment requirements and of earning-capacity assessment methodology to facilitate the examination of an earning-capacity expert or to determine the accuracy of his or her opinions can rely on this book to provide that understanding. Topics include:

• Why courts utilize rehabilitation counselors
• History of rehabilitation counseling
• The rehabilitation-counseling process
• Rehabilitation counseling and earning-capacity assessment
• Earning-capacity calculations
• Why rehabilitation counselors are accepted by the courts
• Examination of earning-capacity experts, and more