When navigating the court system, a small business owner encounters certain risk factors inherent in litigation.
Among them, it is often not difficult for plaintiffs to present enough evidence to get over the low 50-percent burden-of-proof threshold in a civil case. This especially is true because "expert" witnesses readily offer their services to plaintiffs. It is quite amazing to see "experts" line up on either side of a case, and then offer their "expert" opinions, which are exactly opposite to each other.
For example, it is not uncommon to see a physician hired by the plaintiff testify that the plaintiff has a 15 percent permanent disability to his back, while a similar expert hired by the defense testifies that the disability is actually 5 percent, or simply nonexistent. Obviously, in every case, so-called experts are wrong 50 percent of the time.
In fact, studies have questioned the validity of experts' opinions. They point out that the wide divergence of expert testimony in a particular case conclusively proves that "experts," in many cases anyway, merely are offering their personal opinions, which may be based on conjecture, their own perception of their skills, their personality, and the payment of their fee. Sadly, this is true in criminal, as well as civil, cases.
Nevertheless, in our legal system, if an expert has the credentials, the testimony may be accepted as if it were a simple incontrovertible mathematical formula. That the plaintiff can use an expert in this way may allow the lawsuit to meet the relatively low burden of proof in the case, even when the defendant attempts to counter this testimony with his own expert. The fact that the defendant will have to personally pay the expert's fee may put the defendant at a disadvantage, since the plaintiff's lawyer is likely covering the cost of their expert in return for a contingent fee.
Finally, experts also play a significant role in convincing juries that the plaintiff suffered significant monetary damages.