Becoming an expert witness
Discussion
As a lot on here will know i am in the paving and landscaping industry. It is hard, not only hard work but hard to impossible to get staff who for fill the criteria. (Same as a lot of business i guess).
Anyway.
Over the last few years there has been a rise in standards expected by customers. Now for me this is easy. No problem, i take pride in what i do and want to do better and better. But as i am sure you all know most tradesman do not give a f
k!
So there has become a new person in the industry.
The expert witness.
Theres a few and tbh they are no more of an expert than me, They do not appear to be any more clever, they just appear to have picked up on the bad work, the unhappy customers and the fact that they can take these cowboys to court and in a lot of cases get the entire job cost back!
Obviously these few keep this closely guarded. I will say they have positioned themselves as experts in the industry and appear everywhere. They endorse products (often poor ones ironically) and are well known.
So how do i do that? how do i learn what is necessary to be taken seriously in court.
From the outside as an expert myself it would be very very easy to pull most peoples work apart, even more so an obviously bad job.
One of these guys charges something like £700 a day plus travel.I don't know if that includes the court 'stuff' or just the visit and report.
He is always posting on instagram about going here there and everywhere and appears to be doing very well.
To me it looks like a nice way out of the physical labour and stress of it all.
This guy does have industry accreditation's and holds seminars etc. He's no idiot by any means but he's not less of an idiot than me.
I guess the hard bit is getting the judge to take my report seriously.
Anyway.
Over the last few years there has been a rise in standards expected by customers. Now for me this is easy. No problem, i take pride in what i do and want to do better and better. But as i am sure you all know most tradesman do not give a f
k! So there has become a new person in the industry.
The expert witness.
Theres a few and tbh they are no more of an expert than me, They do not appear to be any more clever, they just appear to have picked up on the bad work, the unhappy customers and the fact that they can take these cowboys to court and in a lot of cases get the entire job cost back!
Obviously these few keep this closely guarded. I will say they have positioned themselves as experts in the industry and appear everywhere. They endorse products (often poor ones ironically) and are well known.
So how do i do that? how do i learn what is necessary to be taken seriously in court.
From the outside as an expert myself it would be very very easy to pull most peoples work apart, even more so an obviously bad job.
One of these guys charges something like £700 a day plus travel.I don't know if that includes the court 'stuff' or just the visit and report.
He is always posting on instagram about going here there and everywhere and appears to be doing very well.
To me it looks like a nice way out of the physical labour and stress of it all.
This guy does have industry accreditation's and holds seminars etc. He's no idiot by any means but he's not less of an idiot than me.
I guess the hard bit is getting the judge to take my report seriously.
Thanks for all the replies and very interesting.
The type of work this guy does is residential driveways, patios, landscaping work. The majority of stuff is carried out to an obviously awful standard so i doubt he has too much trouble showing how bad it is.
He seems very very busy with it.
I don't really know how it works in terms of him being cross examined. I shouldn't imagine he has too much of a hard time proving his case as the work is that bad.
I also don't know what he does for his £700. does that include just a visit and report? or does it include court visits etc.
To me it looks very very easy to make a case against a lot of this work.
I guess a lot of it is out of the scope of small claims.
The type of work this guy does is residential driveways, patios, landscaping work. The majority of stuff is carried out to an obviously awful standard so i doubt he has too much trouble showing how bad it is.
He seems very very busy with it.
I don't really know how it works in terms of him being cross examined. I shouldn't imagine he has too much of a hard time proving his case as the work is that bad.
I also don't know what he does for his £700. does that include just a visit and report? or does it include court visits etc.
To me it looks very very easy to make a case against a lot of this work.
I guess a lot of it is out of the scope of small claims.
The thing is i am really unsure if the type of people you would be going against had anyone at all representing them.
From what i see what typically happens is something like this :
Someone has job done, say a landscaped garden.
Quality of work is disgraceful, lets just say things like paving above dpc, paving laid on dots and dabs, flooding.
Customer isn't happy. contractor won't put right, argument ensues. contractor adamant that theres nothing wrong.
Customer seeks out one of these expert witnesses.
Witness makes a visit, discovers blatantly shocking work makes the report.
At this stage i am not sure who it is taking the contractor to court? The customer i guess.
Report is shown in court and as the work is so blatantly bad the customer wins.
You would not believe just how low the standard of some work is. I really find it hard to believe there is some horrendous movie style cross examination that goes on. Even if there is its not hard to show why something is wrong.
But thats an assumption and i was always taught its wrong to assume
From what i see what typically happens is something like this :
Someone has job done, say a landscaped garden.
Quality of work is disgraceful, lets just say things like paving above dpc, paving laid on dots and dabs, flooding.
Customer isn't happy. contractor won't put right, argument ensues. contractor adamant that theres nothing wrong.
Customer seeks out one of these expert witnesses.
Witness makes a visit, discovers blatantly shocking work makes the report.
At this stage i am not sure who it is taking the contractor to court? The customer i guess.
Report is shown in court and as the work is so blatantly bad the customer wins.
You would not believe just how low the standard of some work is. I really find it hard to believe there is some horrendous movie style cross examination that goes on. Even if there is its not hard to show why something is wrong.
But thats an assumption and i was always taught its wrong to assume
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