The title to this post, Current Medicolegal Dilemmas, is misleading now that I think about it a bit.

Even with the advent of technology that mostly eliminates the need for hard copies and even with software which assists in legal research and record retrieval, the core of medicolegal matters remains the people who are involved in a case.

At the end of the day, regardless of which side you represent, your case will fail if your expert witness is deemed untrustworthy or meritless.  The digital age has made it easier to find experts in certain fields, but that expert must still hold weight in court.

With that comes the prerequisites of an expert witness that will probably never change:  Presentability and Communication.

Presentability speaks to how a jury will respond to an expert witness, however superficial that initial response may be.  Unfortunately, this fact often hinges heavily on physical appearance but ultimately it is the litigator who will consider all aspects possible when choosing an expert witness.

Communication gives the litigator less wiggle room.  If the expert witness cannot communicate in a clear and convincing manner or cannot be understood by the jury, everything else is for naught.

The medicolegal world has changed tremendously when it comes to the accessibility of information and how fast that information can be gathered and distributed, but in some ways I take comfort in the fact that the obvious realities of real life challenges remain.  The medicolegal field remains rooted in people.

Keep pushing,

Robert Leonard Pham

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