Medical malpractice litigators constantly face the daunting task of understanding the medicine at issue in their cases. Unlike doctors, medical malpractice attorneys do not usually get to specialize in only one type of medical case. Over the course of a year, an attorney may face medical topics as diverse as laparoscopic cholecystectomy procedures, hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy in newborns, complications from bariatric surgery, Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus infections and many, many more. Physicians may spend an entire lifetime developing an expertise in particular medical fields. It is impossible for even the best attorney to master the same material in as little as a year while preparing for trial.
ATTORNEYS MUST RELY ON THEIR EXPERTS
In Kentucky, the law requires medical malpractice litigants to establish the standard of care through expert testimony. For example, a defendant in a surgical case will introduce testimony from another qualified surgeon to explain the standard of care and how it was met in a particular case. Attorneys will meet with their client and their experts to recieve a “crash course” on the underlying medicine and the various issues presented by the case. Generally speaking, the attorney has no education on the topic beyond what their clients and experts tell them (and past cases). This creates many pitfalls for the attorney when he or she attempts to depose the opposing party’s medical experts.
RISKS OF EXPERT DEPOSITIONS
Imagine trying to depose an expert on the topic of a surgical procedure which he performs more than ten times per day. You, on the other hand, have no medical training or background. The only preparation you have may consist of a review of medical journal articles and meetings with your client and experts. These types of expert depositions are handled by very adept attorneys everyday in Kentucky. However, every attorney is always worried about what they do not know to ask. There are truly many occasions where an attorney may not even fully understand how little he knows. This can allow an opposing expert to provide incomplete and ambiguous answers. It will also result in a deposition that leaves room for many trial “surprises” by the expert at the conclusion of the deposition. The only way an attorney can be 100% sure that they have fully understood all testimony is to take their experts with them.
KENTUCKIANA COURT REPORTERS WILL BRING YOUR EXPERT TO THE DEPOSITION
Medical experts are highly trained and deservedly seek hourly rates in excess of $500. These high costs, along with an expert’s schedule, can make it impossible to have them personally attend the deposition of an opposing expert. The solution is simple: stream depositions of the opposing expert’s deposition directly to your experts. With Kentuckiana’s video streaming services, you can stream the live deposition of an opposing expert in Miami to your standard of care expert in Cleveland and your causation expert in Sacramento. This allows your experts to contact you on breaks and guide an attorney’s questions. Of course, they can also call attention to any answer that is less than fully accurate or one that fails to consider the most current medical literature. All of this can be done while avoiding the high cost of having an expert fly across the country to attend a two-hour long deposition.
Our expert deposition streaming allows your expert to sit next to you in real-time even if he is actually 500 miles away. We will provide a secure and reliable connection for a charge of less than $100 per deposition and the video can be viewed on any PC or tablet. Call us today to learn more about streaming depositions to your experts.