On humanizing the expert witness: a proposed narrative approach to expert witness qualification.

Before expert witnesses may testify in court, it is necessary that they be qualified to render an expert opinion. The qualification process has three steps: first, the expert’s training, education, experience, and other indices of qualification are elicited on direct examination by the retaining attorney. Second, a proffer is made to the court of the witness as an expert; the proffer may be challenged or argued in voir dire or other mechanism by the opposing side. Finally, the court either accepts or rejects the proffer, and the witness, if now qualified as an expert, is entitled to give expert opinions to a reasonable medical certainty, if testifying in a medical context. Problems of bias or conflict of interest must be sorted out. Traditionally, the first step in the process involves a lengthy series of questions—20, 40, or even 60 questions, depending on the expert and the case— along the following lines, with additional queries to fill in the details: