Terms of Service
How an engagement with Expert Witness Networks works: who you are contracting with, how a retention begins, how correspondence and payment are handled, and how a disagreement gets resolved.
In short: your engagement is with EXPERT WITNESS NETWORKS, Corp.; the expert is retained through the company; the company does not mark up the expert’s fees; work begins when the invoice is paid; and every email between counsel and the expert copies our office.
1. Who you are engaging
This website is owned and operated by EXPERT WITNESS NETWORKS, Corp. The experts presented here are retained through Expert Witness Networks under contract. When you retain an expert through this site, your engagement — the agreement, the invoice, and the account — is with Expert Witness Networks, not with the individual expert.
Expert Witness Networks does not mark up the expert’s fees. The rate you are quoted is the expert’s own published rate.
2. How an engagement begins
Before you retain anyone, the expert will speak with you by telephone for up to fifteen minutes at no charge, so that you can judge whether he or she is the right fit for your matter.
If you decide to proceed, Expert Witness Networks issues a fee agreement and an invoice. Work begins when the invoice is paid. No records are reviewed and no expert time is committed before payment is received, unless we have agreed otherwise in writing.
3. Correspondence
All correspondence between retaining counsel and the expert must copy ltate@expertwitnessnetworks.expert, in both directions — everything you send to the expert, and everything the expert sends to you. This is how the file stays complete, how deadlines are tracked, and how billing stays accurate. Please do not open a separate channel that Expert Witness Networks cannot see.
4. Deliverables
Reports, declarations, affidavits, and other written work product are released when the engagement is paid in full, unless prior arrangements have been made in writing. Deposition and trial testimony are scheduled and billed separately; terms vary by expert.
5. Fee schedules
Each expert maintains a fee schedule covering review time, report preparation, deposition, and trial testimony. Fee schedules are not published on this site. A copy is provided on request, by telephone or email, once released by Expert Witness Networks. Release requires the authorization of C.L. Tate or another authorized officer of the company.
6. Continuing and repeat engagements
If you wish to retain the same expert again — on this matter or any other — the engagement runs through Expert Witness Networks. Experts retained through this company are not available for direct retention outside it.
Coming back through us costs you nothing extra. The rate is the same, because we do not mark up the expert’s fees. If you would prefer to contract directly with an expert going forward, tell us; that can be arranged by separate written agreement, and we will not stand in the way of it. What we ask is that it be arranged openly rather than around us.
7. If an expert is approached directly
An expert retained through Expert Witness Networks who is approached directly by counsel, a party, or an agent of either is required to notify Expert Witness Networks promptly that the company was bypassed. An expert who fails to give that notice, and who accepts or performs the work, owes Expert Witness Networks double the agreement rate for that engagement.
This provision exists to be pointed at, not to be used.
8. Good faith
This arrangement runs on the honor system, and it has worked that way because the people in it are professionals. Everyone here holds a degree, and this is the legal profession — the standard we hold ourselves to should be at least as high as the one we are hired to opine on. We extend good faith and we expect it. Do what is right, and none of the provisions above will ever matter.
9. No legal or medical advice; no relationship formed
Nothing on this website is legal, medical, or psychological advice. Contacting Expert Witness Networks or an expert through this site or by telephone does not create an attorney-client, doctor-patient, or evaluator-examinee relationship, and is not an offer to treat.
10. Confidentiality
Case materials provided to Expert Witness Networks and its experts are handled as confidential and used only for the engagement. Please do not transmit privileged material before an engagement is confirmed in writing.
11. Dispute resolution
If a dispute arises out of or relating to an engagement or these terms, the parties will first attempt to resolve it between themselves. The party raising the dispute will give written notice describing it, and the parties will negotiate in good faith for thirty (30) days from that notice.
If negotiation does not resolve it, the parties will submit the dispute to non-binding mediation before a single mediator, in Floyd County, Kentucky, or by video conference if both parties agree. The mediator’s fee is shared equally and each party bears its own costs. Mediation must be completed, or declared at impasse by the mediator, before either party files suit.
Only after mediation has concluded or reached impasse may either party bring an action. Any such action must be brought exclusively in the Circuit Court or the District Court of Floyd County, Kentucky. Each party consents to that venue and to personal jurisdiction there, and waives any objection based on inconvenient forum. This paragraph does not prevent either party from seeking emergency injunctive relief in that court to preserve the status quo.
12. Governing law and changes
These terms and any engagement under them are governed by the laws of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, without regard to its conflict-of-laws principles. Expert Witness Networks may update these terms; the version posted here governs.
Questions: (877) 330-1495, or use the contact form.
Questions about these terms?
Call the office or send us a note and we will walk you through any part of it.