Interviewing a Mortgage Expert Witness, Faster, Better

LOS ANGELES, CA, UNITED STATES, November 30, 2020 /EINPresswire.com/ -- In litigation involving private money lending, expert witness testimony is required.

After some initial inquiry e-mails, you're on the phone with a prospective real estate lending expert. Can those calls be handled in a manner that brings you improved, faster results? Receiving hundreds of these calls over the years as a mortgage expert witness, I've observed huge differences in the ways that attorneys make these inquiries.

Here are a series of suggestions as to how you might get better results in less time:

Step #1: On what topics is an opinion required?

One challenge I find is that sometimes an attorney has been speaking for a period of time and I still havent' heard the specific area in which they would like the expert to form opinions. I would suggest opening, after approprite introductions, with a specific statement about possible areas of expert opinion / testimony. For example, "we're looking for an expert to testify about a hard money lender's investigation of a possible loan."

That alone, could enable the expert to indicate whether it's an area they could opine in, or perhaps self-disqualify quickly so you can both move on.

Next, (and this is interchangeable with the first step) would be to discuss areas of conflicts and logistics, such as:

* conflicts of interest
* deadlines for disclosure of experts, reports, or declarations due
* pending settlement negotiations, motions for summary judgement, or other pending court-related deadlines
* upcoming dates for trials, arbitrations
* logistics regarding retainers, fees, and the client
* information about the retaining law firm, whehter or not the attorney calling is the lead attorney and what, if any, other individuals from the same firm
may contact the expert
* information about other known experts retaining by opposing parties in the matter
* available documents, exhbiits, and other information available for review by the expert


Specific to private money lending or loan servicing:

* the type of loan, type of borrower (entity, individual) type of colalteral property, present status of the loan and a descirption of the status during the time for which testeimoy is desirec.
* how the loan was originatied
* whether the loan relied on the business purpose exemption
* by whom the loan was serviced
* information about private trust deed investors, and whether the loan was a fractionalized trust deed
* regulations, laws and practices that are in question:
* and other loan specific information
* the present status of the loan, borrower and collateral property

With a clear, step by step process, the participants in the call can quickly identify problems that prevent moving forward or can advance to the next step in the call.

I hope these suggestions improve your expert witness search results and more importantly, assist you in finding the correct private money lending expert witness for your case.

Joffrey Long
Southwest Bancorp
+1 818-635-1777
email us here