Forensic Private Practice

[Auvelity]

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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!

 

[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.

 

[SPsych6]

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[Sushirolls]

If you get tired of academia...
Go to one of the many states that are lower in population, heck 5 million or less in the state is good enough.
Pick a nice small rural town.

I'm doing general adult practice and every 6 months I get calls from Lawyers [ones I've never talked to before] asking if I can help them. Sadly I decline as I'm not doing an forensic. They still proceed to describe the basics of their case client even though I'm like I can't help you / don't tell me details. And they would be fun cases! I'll point them to resources that might get them connected to some one.

But as you build up your general psych practice, word will get out on your Forensic and they'll start trickling in.

I just haven't crossed the threshold of energy/desire to pursue this. But the demand is there, and the lawyers struggling for who to reach for is real in lower population areas.

 

[Geraltofrivia]

I got a referral for a custody evaluation. The judge wanted an IQ test and an MMPI? I told the attorney that it's not really needed if the clinical interview is sufficient but the attorney said the judge wanted it. Has this happened? Btw this was my first referral in many many many months so I was sad to decline

Edit: I also told the attorney I was cautioned to not do them as sometimes people go crazy and kill the evaluator (from what I was told) and the attorney said "This one may kill you so it's probably good you can't"

 

[nexus73]

I got a referral for a custody evaluation. The judge wanted an IQ test and an MMPI? I told the attorney that it's not really needed if the clinical interview is sufficient but the attorney said the judge wanted it. Has this happened? Btw this was my first referral in many many many months so I was sad to decline

Edit: I also told the attorney I was cautioned to not do them as sometimes people go crazy and kill the evaluator (from what I was told) and the attorney said "This one may kill you so it's probably good you can't"

I have a colleague who does a lot of forensic work, more referrals than he can take. In these situations, he will tell the attorney to retain a psychologist for psychological testing which he will incorporate into his report. Many attorneys accept this arrangement and end up having 2 experts for the case. He's so busy that if the attorney doesn't want this extra expense it's no issue because he has more cases waiting. Similar situations if he needs occupational or speech therapy evals for functional impairments for guardianship cases for example.