A table of experts,
one collaborative report.
The roundtable model replaces one individual’s analysis with a panel of subject matter experts, each reviewing the record independently before one collaborative report is written. Here is how the model works, what it changes for retaining counsel, and who holds each seat.
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How the roundtable model works.
The Roundtable of Subject Matter Experts is convened by Professor Gilbertson. Each expert reads the complete record independently and forms analysis and opinions within their own discipline; no expert’s read is filtered through another’s before it is written down. The independence is the design, not a side effect.
- Counsel sends the complete record on physical media, sixty days ahead of any report deadline
- Each expert reviews the discovery independently, inside their own discipline
- Each expert summarizes analysis and opinions in writing for the primary author
- Primary authorship rotates with the focus of the report
- The finished report carries the collective analysis and opinions of the table
Independent review has a concrete meaning here. Each expert receives the discovery itself, not a colleague’s summary of it, and writes the summary that goes to the primary author only after forming opinions inside their own lane. The sequence keeps each discipline’s read its own.
Rotation is the detail counsel should notice. The primary author is the expert whose discipline sits at the center of the report’s questions, with the other reviews summarized in writing behind it. A use-of-force record is authored from the police practices seat; a scene-documentation record from the crime scene seat.
Which disciplines a record calls for is usually visible early. Video and use-of-force reports call for the police practices seat; scene documentation calls for the crime scene seat; training files and accreditation questions call for the command and standards seats. The table reads what the record requires, and nothing more.
What one collaborative report changes for counsel.
The traditional route to multiple disciplines is serial retention: separate experts, separately engaged, each producing a separate report on a separate schedule. It works, but it leaves seams. Opposing counsel can work the gaps between separately retained experts: different assumptions, different slices of the record reviewed, different vocabulary for the same facts.
The roundtable is one engagement in which every discipline reads the same record. The reviews are independent, but the record is common and the summaries land in one document, so the analysis does not contradict itself at the joints. Serial retention also multiplies the places a schedule can slip; one engagement runs on one clock. For counsel, that is one engagement to manage and one schedule to run, in place of several.
What does not change under the model is the method. Opinions still rest on the complete record: video, reports, statements, depositions, training files and agency policy, measured against state and federal law, reputable academic research, and national police standards and practices, on the totality of the facts and circumstances.
The model also keeps its edges honest. Where scientific, medical, technical or human factors evidence runs past the table’s disciplines, qualified experts in those fields are deferred to, on the record. Depositions are taken by Zoom on the published schedule, and trial testimony is available nationwide.
The consultants are independent professionals. None offers legal advice or attorney referrals, no result is promised or implied for any matter, and legal conclusions remain counsel’s: the report addresses police practices.
Who sits at the table.
Four experts sit at the table, holding over 150 years of combined law enforcement and criminal justice experience among them. Each seat is a discipline rather than a title. The lanes, in one line each:
- Professor Gregory Gilbertson (Ret.), convener: police practices, use of force, false arrest, misconduct and self-defense casework
- Christopher Holland, Special Agent, FBI (Retired): cold case and crime scene analysis
- Robert R. Snaza, Sheriff: agency command, policy and training
- Jansen S. Cheek, Department of Defense law enforcement executive (Ret.): training systems, accreditation and organizational standards
Full backgrounds live on the Roundtable of Experts page, and they are worth reading before retention rather than after. The convener’s own footprint, more than 220 matters across 42 states and the District of Columbia, is set out at how much casework, and where.
For the shape of the work each seat performs, start with what a police practices expert does. The standards the crime scene seat reads a record against are collected at crime scene documentation standards.
When the question becomes a retention.
This page is reference. When a live matter needs the analysis, these are the doors.
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