Over the last 20 years I have served as an expert witness in federal cases involving environmental and health issues. In many of these the experts are required to disclose their fee schedules. Based on the disclosures I have seen there seem to be two, maybe three, kinds of pricing:
1. People who work full-time as consultants and do not focus exclusively on legal support. Some of these will charge 1.5 times their standard fees for all legal work. The rule of thumb in the technical consulting business is to charge an hourly rate that is at least twice one's nominal salary. For instance, a salary of $150K/yr works out to about $80/hr over a 1900 hour year, suggesting a minimum hourly rate of $160. This "multiplier" of 2.0--which accounts for indirect costs like overhead, vacations, health care, and so on, as well as profit--varies with industry, reputation of the firm, etc. Because it is a more abstract figure--not directly connected to any individual's salary--it usually is possible to find out what the multipliers are in various industries and for specific firms. For instance, multipliers in engineering consulting typically range from 2.0 to above 4.0 (for those who portray themselves more as management consultants). I would suggest finding out what fields other experts in this case are in and investigating their multipliers.
2. Academics who are moonlighting as experts. These tend to charge less--sometimes much less--than the consultants. The hourly rates I have seen range from a low outlier of $60/hr (in the late 1990s, which would be near $100/hr now adjusted for inflation) to around $250/hr. Many have been charging $150 to $225/hr recently, even among people who are prominent in their field. I would expect biostatisticians to command higher rates, but I don't have any data about this.
3. Others who for whatever reason can charge unusually large amounts. All those whose work I have seen have been competent, but no more so than anyone else, and a few were actually worse than average at communicating their work. There is no consistent association with prominence or reputation: one expert was an unknown who, because he had risen into the management ranks at his large national organization, could charge $400/hr (about $500/hr adjusted for inflation). Anyone charging more than $550/hr was also an M.D. in the business of medical testimony.
Some clients tend to pay less or even not to pay at all. The worst--I experienced this first hand and had it corroborated by attorneys--are certain large insurance firms defending claims. (Even worse than that are coalitions of such firms.)
It is standard, but by no means universal, practice for many consultants to double their standard rates for actual testimony in court and for depositions.
Charges for travel time vary a lot. I choose forms of travel in which I can work on the case or other projects and, provided that is possible, do not charge for the "down time" during travel.
Large firms tend to attach 5-15% markups on all direct costs, such as travel, meals, supplies, etc., but small firms and individual consultants usually just pass along such costs.
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William Huber
Quantitative Decisions
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