Forensic Private Practice

[Auvelity]

Hey everyone,

I’m graduating from my forensic fellowship soon! While I’ve accepted a full-time academic position, I’m also looking to start a part-time clinical/forensic private practice. One area I feel under-prepared in is the business side of forensics (things like setting up the practice and navigating billing). I plan to ask my supervisors for guidance on that front.

What I’d really love your input on is this: Are there certain types of evaluations you advertise on your website, even if you hadn’t done them during training? My program offered a robust and fantastic criminal experience, but like many forensic fellowships, we didn’t get hands-on experience in civil evaluations in depth. I’m curious, did you feel comfortable marketing civil evaluations and learning them as you went?

Also, for those of you who’ve started a private practice outside of your primary institution, how did you begin building your referral base?

Thanks so much for any insight you’re willing to share!

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[splik]

Yes, it is perfectly fine to list evaluations you have not done as long as you are trained to do so. I would go ahead and list yourself as available for any evaluation you are trained to do and would be happy to be retained for. The important thing is you do not misrepresent your experience to attorneys. Good attorneys will properly vet you and ask about your experience before retaining you but many attorneys won't. I'll give you an example - I listed death penalty cases on my website as an evaluation I was available for. I had never done any before and when first retained for a capital case I did explicitly tell the attorneys I had never done a capital case while also describing my relevant experience and providing them some redacted copies of reports and they went ahead and retained me. There are many other kinds of evals I never did in residency that I have done since. We have to start somewhere.

Get advice from your supervisors in private practice. The ones in academics might be totally clueless about things like marketing or how to get cases. If you aren't able to get sufficient advice from your supervisors, consult with someone who can, which you may have to pay for. I provide consultation on setting up and marketing expert witness practices (for those who are not forensic trained as well as those who are) and I'm sure there are others who offer this as well. You can also seek consultation to help you with evaluations you aren't familiar with in the same way you can seek clinical consultation or supervision. Your fellowship supervisors may be willing to advise long after you're out of fellowship - some of mine were very helpful and continue to be. You can also discuss cases with your colleagues and peers such as co-fellows or folks you meet through AAPL etc.