Testifying Expert Location Services Terms And Conditions
Discovery NP Legal Consultants offers medical and nursing testifying expert location services as one of its services for trial attorneys. We can locate registered nurses (RN), advanced practice registered nurses (APRN), nurse practitioners (NPs), physician’s assistants (PAs), certified registered nurse anesthetists (CRNAs), certified nurse midwives (CNM), medical doctors (MD), doctors of osteopathic medicine (DOs), surgeons, certain medical therapists and more.
Compensation structure:
External candidates. For candidates selected from outside Discovery NP Legal Consultants, our services involve a fee for only the location of independent candidates. The agreement between the selected candidate and the law firm from the point of selection forward is independent of Discovery NP Legal Consultants.
Internal Candidates. If a candidate from within our company is selected, the location fee (less the deposit) is waived/refunded, and the agreement is subject to the individual’s fee schedule that we provide, which includes our fees integrated onto their requirements.
Definitions:
- “Fully-Qualified Expert” or “qualified expert” is defined as an expert who meets all the qualifications set forth by the hiring attorney.
- “Mostly-Qualified Expert” is defined as a candidate who meets at least 60% of the qualifications set forth by the hiring attorney.
- “Additional qualifications” include any requests above and beyond basic credential (ex. MD, RN, PA, NP, etc.) and specialty. “Additional qualifications” may include requests such as subspecialty (example: sleep medicine as a subspecialty of neurology or pulmonology) specific gender, ethinicity/race, locality (2 qualifier points for state, 3 qualifier points for region within a state), academia, prior testifying experience, experience with a specific or rare clinical condition, authorship, etc.
Determination of Final Cost:
The final cost of services shall take into consideration the number of and nature of “additional qualifications” that the attorney requests and that are delivered upon, and the degree to which those qualifications reduce the accessibility of suitable candidates. (Ex. State-specific locality, or shall be billed a commensurately higher add-on than a multi-state limitation.)
Enumeration of the “additional qualifications” at the sole discretion of Discovery NP Legal Consultants upon accepting the assignment. It is communicated by written estimate. During the course of the engagement, should it be necessary, the calculation of the fees may be adjusted as both parties can agree such that the fees adequately reflect and compensate for the complexity of the search or rarity of the Fully Qualified Candidate.
Base Service:
The base service includes the submission of a minimum of 2 “Fully-Qualified Expert” candidates’ CVs and (if applicable) fee schedules. Alternatively, in particularly complicated requests, the presentation of a minimum of 3 “Mostly-Qualified Expert” candidates will fulfill the request. These shall be delivered as attachments or links via email to the hiring attorney or representative within 15 business days of the payment of the initial deposit. The initial candidates’ submissions will have all contact and identifying information redacted.
Selection and Completion of the Service:
The hiring attorney then selects the expert that they feel best meets the requirements, and Discovery NP Legal Consultants will send an invoice for the payment of the outstanding location fee. Once the invoice is up to date, the unredacted version of the CV and fee schedule of the selected candidate only will then be sent to the attorney via email. Discovery NP Legal Consultants will notify the candidate of the attorney’s intent to reach out, and the services shall be considered complete at this point, unless premium services described below are desired.
Disclaimer on Testifying Expert’s Opinion:
Discovery NP Legal Consultants is not responsible for the opinions of the independent testifying experts, and makes no representation nor guarantee that the testifying expert’s opinions will be in alignment with the narrative or opinion of the hiring attorney.
Exception to Disclaimer of Expert’s Opinion (Testifying Expert Agreement Guarantee for clients): In cases on which Discovery NP Legal Consultants is retained as an hourly behind-the-scenes consultant, we offer a moneyback guarantee (of the location fee, less deposit) that the independent testifying expert will generally be in agreement with the attorney’s narrative/conclusion. The moneyback guarantee will first be honored by offering the contact information of additional qualifying experts until the point at which the options are exhausted without additional fees. If we are unable to locate a testifying expert that can corroborate our findings, the testifying expert location fee will be refunded (less deposit).
Refunds:
The initial payment is a deposit to secure the services, and is not refundable unless Discovery NP Legal Consultants fails to fulfill the order as defined above.
The deposit may not be refunded for the attorney’s decision to withdraw the request for the service, nor for the attorney’s declining of all candidates in a qualifying submission, as defined herein. There shall be no refund of the location service for the testifying expert’s opinion not being in alignment with the attorney’s opinion on the case. However if the testifying expert should disagree, the attorney may select from among the other candidates presented during the selection process at no additional charge until such time as all candidates have been exhausted. In such case, Discovery NP Legal Consultants is not obligated to present additional options without another location service fee.
Premium Services
Specialty NP Consultant Interviews:
Discovery NP Legal Consultants offers a premium fee option for the performance of a 5-10 minute video-recorded interview with any or all candidates in order for the specialty NP locator to gauge the articulateness, presentation, likeability, perceived competence, and composure of the candidate, and for the attorney to assess the same from the recording.
If video recordings for a candidate have been previously recorded and exist in the database, access to existing video is available for a lower fee, as well.
Additional Candidates’ Contact Information
If the attorney desires the contact information of the additional candidates presented, some or all this information can be obtained by requesting and the payment of additional fees as outlined on the fee schedule. These fees are waived in the case of a candidate disagreeing with the attorney.
Testifying Expert Location Guarantee for Plaintiff Cases
If a Discovery NP Legal Consultants consultants is presently retained on an hourly basis behind the scenes on a case which we feel to have merit, and in which we are additionally retained to perform testifying expert location services, the guarantee of our narrative of events is that the testifying expert we locate will agree with our conclusion of merit and support the case, or else we will perform additional location services without additional location service fees until such time as a testifying expert who is in agreement can be located. This offer is only available to plaintiff cases with fewer than 2 qualifiers, wherein participation of the attorney’s client is voluntary (i.e. Plaintiff firms; this guarantee is not available to Defense firms).