Engineering failures rarely start with a single crack or a single bad decision. They start with messy constraints, unclear scopes, missing documents, rushed timelines, and people making judgment calls under pressure. In this episode, we connect with James Cohen, an award-winning forensic engineer and seasoned expert witness with more than 40 years in structural engineering, failure analysis, testing, and code work. He shares the moments that pulled him into forensic engineering, plus the hard-earned habits that keep an expert credible when the stakes are high.

We dig into what actually governs an engineering opinion in litigation: the contract, the scope of work, and the specific codes and standards that were invoked at the time. James explains why working across countries is often less about geography and more about figuring out which standards apply and what the factors of safety really mean.

From there, we get highly practical on expert witness workflow: the key questions to ask on the first attorney call, how licensing and conflicts shape whether you should accept a matter, why budgets have become a bigger part of modern engagements, and when it makes sense to bring in MEP or cost estimating support. James also shares how he approaches depositions and trials, including simple demonstratives that help juries understand compression, torsion, and shear, and why report writing should be built for a lay reader without losing technical rigor.

If you’re an attorney hiring experts or an engineer stepping into testimony, this one will sharpen your process. Subscribe for more conversations like this, share it with someone who works in litigation support, and leave a review with your biggest expert witness red flag or best first-call question.

One weak expert can turn a strong case into a courtroom disaster, and one great expert can change the entire settlement conversation. In this podcast episode, we sit down with nationally recognized employment attorney Derek Smith of Derek Smith Law Group PLLC to talk about what actually works when hiring, managing, and preparing expert witnesses in sexual harassment and employment discrimination cases.

We start with the moment Derek learned the stakes firsthand: a first case that forced him to get serious about emotional distress damages, diagnosis, and how expert testimony holds up under scrutiny. From there we get practical about expert witness vetting, including the must ask questions that protect you from the nightmare scenario of a judge refusing to qualify your expert after you’ve already spent months and thousands preparing for trial.

Then we dig into the mechanics that trip people up: privilege and confidentiality, what is discoverable, why every document you give an expert matters, and how compensation discussions can create bias issues. Derek also shares his unorthodox approach to deposition and cross-examination prep, including improv based warmups to help experts stay calm and sharp, plus a mock cross that is tougher than the real thing. We wrap with engagement letter terms, flat fees vs hourly billing, demonstratives and visuals that persuade juries, and why long-term relationships with experts are a career advantage.

If you work with expert witnesses, want better trial preparation, or simply want to understand how credible testimony is built, this conversation is a practical guide. Subscribe, share this with a colleague, and leave a review with your biggest expert witness lesson learned.

Randy Wall is both a certified instructor and a licensed civil engineer, and he shows us how that combo changes everything when snow sports accidents land in court.

Randy explains how time gaps complicate site visits, why a consistent report template keeps testimony inside the “lane,” and how to translate dynamic crashes into clear, simple language that juries trust. Visuals are a cornerstone of his approach. He hand-draws clean diagrams to ground perspective and sequence, and when the record supports it, he partners with a crash reconstruction expert to build compelling animations that align physics with documented facts.

We also map the standards landscape. Snow sports live inside a patchwork of state statutes, county rules, ANSI ropeway codes, ASTM equipment standards, and the National Ski Areas Association Responsibility Code—many of them voluntary. Randy shows how real cases hinge on duty of care, standard of care, breach, cause-in-fact, and proximate cause, not on blanket rules. He walks through the cascade of decisions that often leads to injury and how to separate foreseeability from hindsight.

On the business side, Randy lays out his contract strategy: hourly, on retainer, with a thorough agreement. And how he screens for attorneys who want independent analysis rather than a prefabricated conclusion. His closing playbook for experts is crisp: prepare so your report leads, answer only the question asked in deposition, and never volunteer a tangent that opens new lines of attack.

If you value sharp thinking, clean visuals, and courtroom-ready explanations, this conversation delivers. Subscribe, share with a colleague who works in litigation or risk, and leave a quick review telling us your biggest takeaway.