The fee schedule,
explained line by line.

An expert’s fee schedule usually surfaces late: after the calls, after the conflict check, sometimes after counsel has already committed to a theory that needs the testimony. Publishing the schedule reverses that. Counsel can price the expert into a case budget before the first email, compare the structure against any other practice, and skip the negotiation theater entirely. The numbers are the numbers, plaintiff or defense.

Publication also does quiet work later in the case. Every expert gets asked at deposition what he is being paid. An expert on a published schedule answers with figures anyone can look up, which is exactly how that exchange should sound. And because the deposition fee is communicated by retaining counsel to opposing counsel, a published schedule makes that conversation short: the figure a party is asked to pay matches the figure in print.

The same logic runs through the whole structure. Flat minimums with stated hourly rates underneath mean counsel always knows what a line item is made of, and what happens to the number when the work runs long.

For budgeting purposes the lines stack predictably across the life of a case. A matter that resolves at summary judgment typically touches only the retention line. A matter that goes the distance adds a deposition, sometimes a rebuttal report, and finally trial testimony with its travel. Because each line is published, counsel can price the whole arc at intake and revise the estimate as the case narrows, rather than discovering the cost of trial the month it arrives.

The initial case retainer is a $9,000 flat fee, non-refundable, covering discovery review and the written expert report that states the opinions and their basis. That review is the core of the engagement: each expert reads the complete record counsel assembles independently, measuring the conduct in it against national standards and generally accepted police practices within their own discipline. Before writing begins, a bullet-point outline of the report is approved with retaining counsel.

Most reports are completed within the retainer. Where a record is large enough to require more time, additional hours are agreed with retaining counsel before they are worked, not billed as a surprise afterward. The retainer is a floor with a defined scope, not an open meter, and it is not contingent on anything: it prices the reading, the analysis and the writing, whatever the opinions turn out to be.

A rebuttal report is priced separately, from $5,000: a focused response to an opposing expert’s disclosed opinions, on the same record discipline as a primary report. Rebuttal work is narrower by design, aimed at what the opposing expert actually said, which is why it carries its own line instead of a second full retainer.

Out-of-town trial testimony is billed at $2,400 for each 24-hour period absent from home, which works out to $100 per hour. The clock starts three hours before the scheduled departure flight and ends three hours after the return flight lands. There is no separate line for airport hours or evenings in a hotel: absence from home is the unit, and the bookends are stated in advance, so nothing about travel time is left to argue about at invoice.

Estimated fees and expenses are paid seven days before travel, and refunded in full if the case settles before departure. Counsel who resolves a matter on the eve of trial is not paying for a trip that never happened, and that refund line is published for the same reason the fees are: it belongs in the budget conversation from the start.

Travel expenses are pre-paid by retaining counsel: airfare in American Airlines Premium Economy, lodging within walking distance of the courthouse, and ground transportation. Meals and miscellaneous expenses are $100 per day, and driving time is billed at $100 per hour plus the federal mileage rate. The full mechanics, including how testimony days get scheduled around the court’s calendar, are at trial testimony and travel nationwide.