I don’t think I’ve ever been asked about my exact grades in school. When asked I’d start with the highest degree or credential, you couldn’t have gotten that without your earlier work already having been vetted, and that pretty much ends the matter. The MS and the SE are pretty impressive in the first place, but real engineering experience quickly trumps those. It’s certainly good to be able to cite examples of your own work which are essentially the same as the court case problem; materials, codes, structure/building type, etc. Spend some prep. time with the attorney you are working with, take his/her guidance and direction, they’ll usually stop you if you start going astray; don’t let them put words in your mouth, explain why you can’t say that, but here’s what you can say on the matter and why. Your reputation for honesty and complete factual presentation (not advocacy) are your most valuable assets, don’t ever jeopardize those, you get too quickly discovered for what you really are when you do that. I’ve been involved in a number of cases where we had to use a court room for the depos., since nobody had a big enough conference room for all the attorneys and experts. I’ve also lost a couple of jobs because the other side had a PhD and I didn’t, then after a couple weeks the attorneys called me back in, and I sat at their side, and told them how to interpret what the other guy with the title and little experience was saying and how to ask him what we, or the court, needed.
Almost everyone is nervous for the first few minutes, less so with more experience and more so with the complexity of the case, or if you are being pushed out of your area of expertise, and you shouldn’t go there. The worst thing you can do is to dwell on this for days before the big day, you’ll drive yourself crazy. Obviously, you have to be quick on your feet and know your subject, but your mantra has to be ‘I know a lot more about it than they do, so bring it on.’ On your subject matter, you have to believe that you are the smartest guy in the court room, and you should be; and also, experts do have and can have differences of opinion, but they should be in relatively small degrees, and what sets you apart is that you have the best foundation, explanation, sequence of events to explain it; simple, clear, step by step, and to the point.
Do a good job of preparation, have reviewed the material well, it’s always impressive when you know the plans, reports or calcs., etc. so you can turn right to the correct page, but then spend a second studying the detail or calcs., reread the para. so you’re sure what it says, before you answer, don’t be rushed at this point. Again, you are the smarted guy in the room on the subject, and you are truly a teacher trying to help the Judge and the jury understand a fairly complex problem that most lay people have never given much thought to before. Simple explanations and examples that they can visualize in their minds-eye and from their own experience. For example a yardstick on the flat or on edge, starts to explain a beam much better than some elaborate equations that they have never held in their hand/head before; on end the yardstick works pretty well to start talking about columns and buckling, when compared with a 1' long 2x4. Again, they have actually seen these things, they get your point, and don’t think you are trying to give them a snow job. You don’t usually show all your cards in a depo. Answer the questions completely, but with no more detail than they force you to provide. Make them dig for what they want, don’t give it away, otherwise you are just providing them fodder they can try to twist against you later.
Sit up straight, be proud, project confidence, I didn’t say cooky or arrogant, speak slowly and clearly, and for God sake don’t use a bunch of acronyms, or big words, which half of us don’t even know. Endure yourself to the Judge and the jury by showing them that you are just a regular smart guy trying to explain the problem to them so that they can understand it. Don’t tell anyone I said this, and don’t be condescending, but you’re teaching at about a 9th or 10th grade level here, anyone on a jury should grasp your explanation, you do your case no favors by trying to impress with big words, etc., but by all means do speak well. Listen to the attorney’s question, but talk to the Judge and jury, they are the people you have to convince, not the other side’s attorney, by glaring at him/her. Real eye contact with the Judge and the jury, even more so, shows you are talking to them, trying to explain to them, and they respect you, and your presentation, for not leaving them out of the proceedings.
