If you want to establish any really important fact in your divorce--anything with a great impact on the outcome of the divorce such as "I was abused" or "He committed financial fraud during our marriage" you can't just say it to the Court or even say it to your lawyer and expect people will believe you.
In order to get a firm validation of your position, even if you can talk about what you know quite credibly, you have to have an expert witness. This would be, for example, if we were talking mental health in such areas as abuse, you would need a psychiatrist with an expertise on abuse to meet with you, to review your documentary evidence, and verify based upon his or her extensive expertise and information that you are correct. Then he or she would write a report to that effect and be available to testify in regard to that report on the stand.
These are people who go to court and testify as expert witnesses as a job. This is what they do for a living.
If you were attempting to prove your position in regard to financial fraud, you would ordinarily contact a forensic accountant who would review your financial documents and take on the task of confirming your suspicions. Without an expert witness, you can't really prove your position no matter how credible it is.
Expert witnesses are handled in the following manner. Ordinarily, prior to trial, you would disclose the expert witness to the opposing side a minimum of 30 days prior to trial. The other party would then request a copy of the report and would have the right to depose the witness and ask him or her questions prior to trial.
The problem with expert witnesses is that they often cost a lot of money. Plus, I have found that they can be turned--an opposing attorney can contact them behind or in front of your back, frighten the expert witness and get him to back down or retreat into waffling.
Another problem is that if you don't meet with expert witnesses and firm up their testimony, they can end up blowing it on the stand. So managing your witness, heading him or her in the right direction, can be truly difficult. You don't want your own hired gun shooting you in the foot--trust me.
The most essential need for an expert witness for you women who are going to court is to find a good one who can verify that you aren't crazy. The accusations of insanity have to be the most frequent and the ones that can damage your case more than any other.
In this kind of situation, you need to contact your expert witness to confirm your sanity really early in the game because generally accusations like that start very early and you have to nip them in the bud right away so they don't start spreading and destroying your case.
Get that report as soon as possible and discuss it in advance with the expert witness so you make sure nothing gets into the report that could be damaging to you. Tell the expert witness to be up front with you ahead of time so there are no surprises. If the witness doesn't plan on saying what you want, terminate the relationship quickly and make sure you don't disclose that witness ever and that news you ever consulted with that witness never gets out.
This is your fate, your destiny, your life. Make sure you control it, not someone else.
When it comes to any witnesses you use, you have to speak to them in advance about what they are going to say. Otherwise, they will ramble all over the place and open their testimony up to all sorts of misinterpretation.
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