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UK Expert Witness Databases

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(@andyfox)
Posts: 43
Eminent Member
Topic starter
 

Hi All

We are about to re-register as an expert witness (in the UK) and I am looking at various internet databases/search engines that the legal profession uses and trying to asses them. I am particulalry interested in increasing jobs from lawyers and barristers so could you help me out with the following questions.

1) has anyone registered on a UK Expert Witness database, which one and have you had many referrals - ie was it worth it
2) would anyone recommend a particular EW database to register on
3) is this the best approach in attracting the legal profession

Many thanks for you help, look forward to your replies - thanks for your time everyone.

 
Posted : 07/12/2005 8:53 pm
(@jlloyd)
Posts: 17
Active Member
 

Hi Andy,

We're registered with a number of directories, most of which fail to spring to mind )

One which has yielded results for us is http//www.expertwitness.co.uk/

We don't get huge numbers of referrals from the directories, perhaps one every couple of months, but they do pay for themselves very quickly.

Almost of our work comes in through word of mouth recommendations from existing clients but getting to that stage can be tricky. It's always worth hiring someone to cold call all the legal firms in a region but the difficulty is in getting to past the PAs in order to speak to the right people ?

Good luck, I hope it works out for you.

Justin.

 
Posted : 08/12/2005 3:58 pm
(@jlloyd)
Posts: 17
Active Member
 

oops, should have read "Almost all of our work comes in through word of mouth recommendations" oops

Justin.

 
Posted : 08/12/2005 4:06 pm
nickfx
(@nickfx)
Posts: 131
Estimable Member
 

There are so many of these directories that I have to admit we avoid them. Doing a good job for one law firm naturally leads to others. I find most of our new work comes from Barristers we have sat next to (or opposite!) in Court who are impressed with our work and the phone rings from them next time.

The directories also generate work from all over the country and I'm not too keen to go to the North East or somewhere for a job it eats into the profit margin. I aim for firms within a 1 1/2 hours radius.

I find Cold Calling just results in 'send your details' and no real response. As with all marketing a bit of everything, targeted and done with quality can work well.

All the best with your efforts though.

Nick

 
Posted : 08/12/2005 6:29 pm
(@andyfox)
Posts: 43
Eminent Member
Topic starter
 

thanks for that chap - it's part of an integrated marketing plan as well as the other marketing channels we work on.

Thanks for your comments, seems to be a very mixed opinion that I have received since I started researching these databases - some Barristers/Legal firms that we already work for have mixed opinions as well.

Cheers

 
Posted : 08/12/2005 7:16 pm
nickfx
(@nickfx)
Posts: 131
Estimable Member
 

We should have a chat sometime as we tend not to take any work from any further South than you guys as its too far away to be practical, possibility of some dialogue perhaps?

Either PM or call, contact number on web site - www.csitech.co.uk

Cheers

Nick

 
Posted : 09/12/2005 5:31 pm
(@jlloyd)
Posts: 17
Active Member
 

Hi Nick,

I know what you mean about travel eating into the profit. We find that the LSC have a rigid expectation to pay the same for a given job regardless of where the expert is travelling from, which does give us a headache when contemplating a job with significant travel time.

Mind you, it's not so much the charging that bothers me as the sheer amount of time I spend on the road. I'm off down to a job in Devon this week - 9 hour round trip -/

God I hate hotels, mind you at least I've got a swimming pool on this one -)

Justin.

Say Andy, you're not too far away from where I'm heading - want to meet up for a beer and some networking?

 
Posted : 12/12/2005 8:17 pm
(@benuk)
Posts: 42
Eminent Member
 

The CRFP (www.crfp.org.uk) looks set to take over the job from all the others. They introduced themselves at the F3 conference in October and were very impressive. Accreditation will be reviewed by a panel of peers and the whole process is transparent and based on the accreditation process that's been available for a number of years now to areas like forensic medicine, SOCOs, fingerprinters, crash investigators etc. You'll submit samples of your work and be judged on that, basically. The computer forensics accreditation has been under discussion for a couple of years and will be led initially by Tony Sammes and Peter Somner. I think that it will reach the stage where if you're appearing in court without CRFP credentials, you're going to get some funny looks from the bench. The CRFP are not-for-profit and are initially part-funded by the Home Office. Accreditaion will cost £150 annually.

I think this is a very good thing for computer forensics in the UK - hopefully it'll make a lot of the charlatans and wannabees think twice before offering their services, even if they do have some dubious piece of paper affiliating them to some gang of 'experts' that they bought for a few hundred quid and a reference from a lawyer.

 
Posted : 01/01/2006 5:23 pm
nickfx
(@nickfx)
Posts: 131
Estimable Member
 

Hi Ben

Yeah I agree partly with your comments re the CRFP offering, I spent quite some time with them at F3 but until both the industry and legal worlds embrace them they lack any teeth. I hope that they become similar to the BMA or Law Society but I can't see it happening for a while.

The time to get the paperwork filled out is a 2 edged sword also, I've had it on my desk since F3 and haven't made any progress at all as case load is so heavy. This will put off quite a few whilst, of course, the process of peer review is the only way to sort the wheat from the chaff.

All the law firms and Barristers I deal with every day are not yet aware of it so no sign of the 'funny looks from the bench' you mention.

I really hope it works out but until people like me get my application in then I'm part of the problem rather than the solution. Speaking to the MD's of some of the 'larger' forensic companies they are watching and waiting rather then chucking another £150 each and a load of time preparing the applications for it.

Aside from that the majority of the work I do is corporate incident response and subsequent investigations. Educating the corporate market is going to be an even bigger job.

Have you got your application in yet?

 
Posted : 03/01/2006 8:12 pm
nickfx
(@nickfx)
Posts: 131
Estimable Member
 

Oh and Justin, I'm in Bristol just off the M5, so about 1/2 way through your journey if you need a coffee stop!

Nick

 
Posted : 03/01/2006 8:15 pm
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