I talk a lot about billing & revenue below bc that’s a significant component of this type of work. Being a forensic expert is more stressful, has a greater risk of liability (but still low compared to some medical specialities), and most people avoid it like the plague. I avoided it my first few years, but then realized I actually really enjoy the work. Working with mentorship is key though, so is learning your state’s case law and whatever quirks are baked into the court system.
Tom4705 said:
Also, if you don't mind me asking, how frequently do you travel as part of your work? As a forensic psychologist, do you testify alot? Also do you mind if I ask the ballpark of how much you earn doing what you do?
Travel is highly dependent on the type(s) of forensic work chosen. I’m a neuropsychologist who specializes in acquired brain injury and a few psychiatric diagnoses. I work almost exclusively on the civil side, as opposed to criminal, but there are a bunch of different assessment options in each area. There are also immigration evals, but I don’t know anything about them, other than there is always a need for them (but payment could be limited).
As for location…I can request permission from out of state licensing boards to conduct an eval and/or appear in another state’s court for a case. They can provide temp privileges, usually w a cap on the # of days per year they’ll allow an out of state expert to “practice” in their state. It’s more common in certain regions to keep multiple licenses active, especially on border cities like NYC, PHI, DC, B’more, etc.
A quick note about criminal work, I know some experts will travel to jails and prisons to do evals, while others will see ppl at the person’s lawyer’s office or their own office. There are a number of different types of evals an expert could offer, it just depends on your expertise and what is needed
NGRI evals seem easy to get if you want the work; they aren’t my interest, but usually the expert can negotiate a good rate and work w the county/gov’t on these evals. Beware though, some courts will only pay a capped hourly rate, but most have problems getting enough experts, so they usually will pay more.
I refuse all child custody cases bc they are a very narrow focus with a high-stress setup. Experts can charge $$$ for child custody eval cases, but you’ll definitely get sued by disgruntled parents, and the retaining clients can be a nightmare to navigate. Each community tends to only have a couple/handful of experts who do these evals, and you better have solid mentorship bc you can screw them up really easily.
The vast majority of my forensic work is in my home state, but I travel btw major cities and get paid portal to portal. P2P is great when I have to be deposed or when I have to go testify in court bc I get paid the second I leave my home until the second I return to my home or office. Some court stuff is still done via zoom, a holdover from the peak of COVID, but many court appearances are back to in-person. I’d say 80-90% of my cases never reach deposition or court, so I may only get deposed/appear in court 1-4x per year out of a couple/few dozen cases per year.
By design, probably 1/2 to 2/3 of my cases are “record review only”, so I don’t eval or interview the claimant, I only review the records and provide opinions based on those records. These cases are often earlier on in the process (and might not even have the case filed yet w a court), so they tend to be smaller reviews and/or the beginning steps in a case.
The other 1/3 to 1/2 are cases require an interview and/or formal assessment. The latter is great for the bottom line (hours charged), but I usually prefer just doing record reviews bc it avoids having to schedule an in-person appt and the logistics of testing. Sometimes opposing counsel can be a PITA, so the less I (& my staff) have to deal with them, the better. Other times I just collect the cancellation fees and treat myself to a long weekend vacation bc I already took the time “off” from my clinical work.
Cancellations, No Shows, having cases settle at the last minute, and charging rush fees are all great ways to get paid for dealing w the hassles inherent to taking legal work. As long as you document & disclose your fees (most/all states require these to be disclosed), you can get paid for any cancellations within 1-2wks and add “rush” fees when clients drop last minute requests on you; the expert sets the timeframes. Over the course of a year, this can easily reach $10k-$40k+/yr of additional revenue for clinicians who do more than a handful of cases per year.
As for rates…ppl get spooked talking about money, but as long as we aren’t organizing to set pricing in a given region (like the mob and for-profit corps like insurance carriers do), then we should be fine.
Rates can be very geographically and niche dependent. I’ve seen ppl use double their clinical rate as a rule of thumb bc forensic work is inherently more of a PITA. I’ve seen others call around to experts and lawyers in the community to insure about rates. Fees can also be pulled from court documents, as they are all required to be disclosed. My rates were about average when I started, and now are on the high-end after I built a solid reputation regionally/nationally.
