The Path to Becoming an Expert Witness
/I often hear the question: “After a career with Crawford & Company and two specialty insurers, how did you end up being an expert witness?”
True confession: becoming an expert witness was not a career path I planned. It was through happenstance and accident. There was no Grand Design.
Corporate Life
Some context: in the early 2000s, I was a Senior VP of Claims for a specialty insurer in the Washington DC area. I started getting phone calls from lawyers and firms wanting to hire me as an expert witness in bad faith litigation. I guess that this was due to my industry visibility.
Hitting the Radar Screen
I had written hundreds of trade publication articles on insurance, claims, and litigation management. I had written ten books on various aspects of claims-handling and insurance. I served as a Contributing Author on multiple IIA textbooks as part of its continuing education and designation programs. I gave many presentations at industry seminars and events.
I declined most overtures. I had a full-time demanding job as a corporate claim executive. That absorbed my energy sufficiently. But I did accept a few cases on a "moonlighting" basis, working on them at night and on weekends.
This continued for about ten years.
Fast forward to 2008.
Enough of Corporate Life!*
I had left the specialty company in the DC area to work for a competitor, a start-up subsidiary of a Fortune 500 insurance company. By 2011, I had logged 30+ years in a corporate environment. I had been declining multiple opportunities to serve as an expert witness. My wife kept nudging me toward setting out on my own, asking, "Would you ever consider going out on your own? You're turning away so much business."
I pooh-poohed that idea for years.
Leave the corporate womb?
Say `goodbye’ to benefits and year-end bonuses?
No way!
Stepping Out With Faith . . . and Fear
After a while, like many attorneys and others who develop an entrepreneurial itch, I made the leap of faith from the corporate womb to launch a full-time claim consulting business. Initially, it was terrifying. I formed Quinley Risk Associates out of an interest in becoming an entrepreneur and from fatigue from the corporate environment. To see if I can work self-employed full-time as a claim consultant.
My claim consulting boils down to being an expert witness. It has worked out.
What I don’t miss about corporate life:
fixed schedules,
pointless meetings without agendas
office politics,
flavor-of-the-month management fads pushed by bosses who just read a hot-selling business book,
corporate reorganizations,
bureaucracy,
mandatory off-site retreats and “team building” exercises
performance reviews, or
Home Office diktats.
It was initially terrifying to leave the corporate safety net, but I can happily report that it has worked out great. I've never looked back with regret. When I made the leap, I had two open cases pending. Within three weeks, I received a new assignment: a plaintiff-side case involving a negligence claim against a third-party claims administrator on behalf of a trucking company, claiming that the TPA mismanaged its workers compensation losses.
That boosted my spirits.
I strive to do a good job on each case, with high quality, careful preparation and hitting all deadlines. As a result, word-of-mouth referrals have generated a flow of assignments.
I’m now in year twelve of doing this work full-time.
But — like falling into the insurance claim field — it wasn’t part of any scripted plan or career path I had mapped out. It has been a way to monetize claims expertise as a solo entrepreneur.
Likewise, it can allow you to combine an academic lifestyle with a corporate executive's financial security.
To be sure, there are pros and cons that come from transitioning from corporate employee to solo entrepreneur, but that’s a topic for another blog post.
You can do it, too!
If you have subject matter expertise in claims or any insurance-related domain, consider expert witnessing as a professional path if the corporate grind has lost its appeal.
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Thanks for reading! I am an insurance consultant who helps clients nationwide improve case outcomes through expert analysis and testimony in (usually, but not always) high-value claim disputes. If you have a comment, a request for a future blog topic, or a concern about a pending case, please contact me at kevin@kevinquinley.com. Please visit my website, www.claimscoach.com, to SUBSCRIBE to future issues of The Claims Coach blog.