Weekly Blog 10 - Expert witness in court

As a forensic accountant, there may be instances in your career where you are called into court to act as an expert witness with your written expert report. Your integrity and credibility as an expert witness rests upon how strong of a report you have produced regardless of all the court procedures, professional conduct or standards you follow.

In my opinion, I believe that process of writing up the written expert report is far more critical and difficult than providing verbal evidence in court. This is because firstly, procedure of gathering, analysing, reviewing evidence is very time consuming, depending on the case size, there could be a whole IT system you would have to do a full analysis on. In addition to writing up the report, it is your role as the expert witness to avoid any form of bias as your obligations are towards the court, not your client. On the other hand, providing verbal evidence can be just as difficult , this depends on certain factors. The most important contributing factor would be how well written the report, a bad report with holes/weaknesses in it is very difficult to defend, combined with an experience barrister could discredit your entire report useless. That is why you need to firstly, create a report within the best of your ability and secondly know your report off by heart.

Recently I was given the opportunity to attend a mock trial, definitely an experience I will remember for a life time. It was incredibly insightful observing the interactions between the judge, barristers and other students acting as an expert witness, however, when it was my time to sit in the witness box, it was one of the most daunting experiences I have ever experienced. Providing evidence in chief was the easy part but when it came to the cross examination, it appeared as though my inhibition to think logically flew out the window, trying desperately to defend my report proved pointless. The barrister in cross examination managed to turn my own answers against me, leaving me dumbfounded, which I thought was an amazing feat to do. Another issue I noticed, even with me was misunderstanding or trying to understand the questions being asked, this is important because firstly, you would not want to give an answer that might discredit your report and secondly, making up an answer trying to defend your report will put you in a more detrimental position, it is better just to concede at that point.

(Akkeren, 2014)

If you are considering to be a forensic accountant as your career choice, it is best to expect that one day you will be engaged as an expert witness in court. An important recommendation I like to give to students about being an expert witness is that, with a lot of things in life, being proficient in an art or skill comes with practice, age and experience. Keeping up to date with the most recent standards, procedures and rules that govern forensic accountants and expert witnesses is also another recommendation I would make as the global environment is always changing in terms of; business, technology, legality and society.

Relevant links

Tips from litigators for expert witnesses during trial
                http://www.theexpertinstitute.com/preparing-your-expert-witness-for-trial/

References

Akkeren, J.V. (2014). AYB115 Governance, Fraud& Investigation: Week 12 Resources: The Mock Trial (PART TWO). Retrieved 22 May, 2015 from
                https://blackboard.qut.edu.au/bbcswebdav/pid-5636481-dt-content-rid-                3789658_1/courses/AYB115_15se1/Mock%20Trial%2C%202014.pdf