As Expert Institute continues to expand our relationship with the nation’s top litigators, we have increasingly found that defense attorneys are unable to pay an upfront fee to utilize an expert witness placement service. Defense attorneys require the authorization of and ultimately receive payment from their client’s insurance carrier. With that in mind, the insurance carrier ultimately provides the expert funding directly. As a result, if you are retained on a defense case through Expert Institute, you may be asked to invoice and bill Expert Institute for your time spent working on the case. Expert Institute will charge a fee on top of your hourly rate to recoup the costs of a subscription to our service, as we have no payment from the firm at the outset.
In all other instances, the expert should anticipate billing the firm directly for the time spent working on a case. Most often, our attorney-clients pay an annual subscription fee to utilize our service. We additionally do work with attorneys on a one-off basis, where they pay a one-time engagement fee upfront for the expert witness identified and retained.