Expert Witness Fees or Windfalls?

Steve Klearman

Attorney
(866) 735-1102 Ext 535

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Nevada medical malpractice cases were put on the road to extinction several years ago by a voter-approved initiative that restricted lawsuits to such an extent that many attorneys stopped practicing in this area altogether.

I still do and will continue to. But I've noticed that as medical malpractice lawsuits have become more limited, doctor's expert fees have continued to spiral.

Several days ago I was setting expert depositions in a malpractice case. Defense counsel mentioned that her expert would require $3000 to testify. My expert depositions usually take an hour. Hence, her expert wanted $3000 to testify for an hour. I complained about this and indicated that we would likely seek court intervention to lower the expert's fee.

Then, however, we called our own expert in the case.

He casually mentioned that his minimum deposition fee was $4000.

I guess I won't be contesting the other side's expert fee

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