Do you have years of experience in a specific field? You may be able to earn $200 or more per hour as an expert witness. Experts in anything — literally anything — can earn $200 or more per hour as expert witnesses. And you might not even need to leave your house.

“Two-hundred dollars an hour is on the low end of what (expert witnesses) charge,” says Dan Rubin, national business development manager for Round Table Group, an expert witness search firm. “We have experts who charge $400, $500 and $600 an hour, depending on their expertise. If you have a unique specialty, you can earn even more.”

What’s an expert witness?

Anyone who has watched a legal drama probably has some idea of what expert witnesses do. In short, they provide lawyers and juries with detailed background information to help put important facts into context. This analysis often plays a pivotal role in what happens next.

For example, in the film “My Cousin Vinny,” a mechanic (played by Marisa Tomei) uses her vast knowledge of cars to explain how the tire marks at the crime scene couldn’t have been made by the defendant’s car. Her testimony gives the jury reason to acquit.

Behind the scenes

Yet while movies make us aware of how expert witness testimony might sway a jury, most expert witness work is done behind the scenes long before cases go to trial.

Experts are often hired early in litigation to review case files and opine on what happened. These reviews can cause attorneys to drop or settle cases — or cause them to increase their monetary demands.

Thus, the vast majority of expert witness work is done at home or in an attorney’s office. It involves reviewing files, consulting over the phone and writing reports. It’s only in the fairly rare case that goes to trial when an expert witness is called to testify in pre-trial depositions or in court.

How it works

Let’s say a defense attorney is working on a medical malpractice case. The case is filed because a spinal surgery has gone awry and the plaintiff is left with permanent injury. The defense lawyer wants to know whether the injury was his client’s fault.

This lawyer would look for other seasoned spinal surgeons to serve as an expert witness. The lawyer would provide his expert witness the case notes that describe what happened during the surgery. The expert witness will be looking to see whether normal procedures were followed, as well as any complications that came up during the procedure. The expert would then report back to the attorney with an opinion on whether the doctor was at fault and why.

Assuming the expert believes the doctor was at fault, the defense attorney may opt to settle the case. If the lawyer chooses to settle, he may enlist other experts to help establish a reasonable settlement amount. In this case, the lawyer would probably seek out a human resource official, who could estimate the value of the plaintiff’s lost wages. And, maybe even a financial expert, who can “discount” that lost wage value over the course of the plaintiff’s work life.

Honest and detailed

Of course, the lawyer and his client might decide not to settle, too. In that case, he may look for another seasoned surgeon to support his claim that the doctor was not at fault.

However tempting it might be to come up with an opinion that agrees with the person who’s hired you, that’s not what expert witnesses are supposed to do. Expert opinions must be honest and detailed. Indeed, weighing in with a conflicted opinion can do more harm than good. Why? Because your conflicted opinion might cause your side to choose to go to trial. And, if your testimony is easily impeached, your side loses. Losing in court can be a very expensive mistake.

Experts in anything

Notably, while you need years of experience to serve as an expert witness, your experience could be in almost anything — stamp collecting, sports, engineering, medicine, accounting, law enforcement, media, hospitality, etc.

“You need to be truly qualified in your field,” says Rubin. “But that field could be almost anything.”

Rubin says his firm has enlisted athletic directors to talk about sports supervision in a personal injury case and bartenders to talk about when they’d cut off an inebriated customer. They’ve hired engineers to talk about patent infringement and medical professionals to talk about malpractice and wrongful death cases.

Celia Guo, vice president of expert search at Expert Institute, another expert witness search firm. says that they get requests for farmers, software developers and builders. However, the vast majority of cases they handle involve personal injury and medical malpractice. Thus, doctors, nurses, and public safety specialists (for slip and fall cases) are enlisted far more than others.

Requirements

There are only a few requirements to sign up as an expert witness. The most important is that you have many years of experience in whatever topic you choose to serve as an expert witness. And that you are a well-regarded member of that community. If you are a law enforcement officer, for example, you want to be in good standing and have no disciplinary actions against you. Ideally, you might have reached a level where you train others or lecture in your area of specialty.

Rubin says it’s relatively rare for them to enlist experts under the age of 50 for this very reason. Someone who has been on the job for 10 years is simply less experienced and credible than someone with 25 years, who has climbed the ranks, learned every aspect of the job, and won industry acclaim. However, there are exceptions to this rule in rapidly evolving areas, like social media and AI.

Guo says it’s also important to be current with your skills. Thus, you’re more likely to be enlisted as an expert when you’re still working or have just recently retired.

However, you must also be comfortable communicating both verbally and in writing. And you must have the confidence and credentials to survive hostile courtroom cross-examinations.

Pay

How much do you get paid? You set your own rates. And, while expert witness search firms might suggest “average” rates for your specialty, experts generally earn $200 or more an hour, says Rubin.

If you earn more than that at your day job, which is possible given the amount of experience and skill expert witnesses typically have, Guo suggests that you set your expert witness rates at a slight premium to your normal hourly rate.

Expert Institute also suggests that you charge more for appearing in court than for performing case evaluations or preparing written reports. That’s simply because court hearings are more trouble to schedule and attend. Case evaluations and reports often can be done from the comfort of your home in your free time.

Gig frequency

How often are you likely to get an expert witness gig? The answer ranges from “once in a blue moon” to “regularly.” It really depends on what you do and whether your specialty plays an important role in litigation.

Guo says Expert Institute has some experts who get gigs every month, while others are called on just once or twice a year. Most experts in their registry are contacted for a gig at least once, she adds. However, whether they’re ultimately hired is up to the hiring law firm, not Expert Institute.

Rubin adds that experts who have previous experience in court are in higher demand that those who have never served as expert witnesses before. That’s simply because if you’ve survived previous courtroom challenges to your credibility, you’re likely to survive again. Thus, you’re a lower-risk pick than an expert who has never been courtroom tested.

That said, some great experts are simply not in high demand because their specialties are not litigious. Round Table Group once enlisted an expert witness who was a veterinarian specializing in horse ophthalmology, for instance. While that expert did a great job, they’ve yet to have another case that required that specific skill.

Improving your odds

That said, you can improve your odds of getting expert witness gigs in several ways.

One of these is simply to sign up with several expert witness search firms. Three recommended by SideHusl.com are Expert Institute, Round Table Group and Gerson Lehrman Group. All three allow you to register and build a detailed profile for free. You also set your own rates and pay no commissions to these sites when they find you a gig. All three sites charge clients a finder’s fee, rather than passing on the cost of matchmaking to the expert witness. GLG also helps its experts find other types of consulting gigs.

(The one expert witness search directory that we don’t recommend is JurisPro. The reason: They make you pay an annual fee of almost $400 to list yourself in their directory. Since there’s no guarantee that you’ll get an expert witness gig in any given year, we think the fee is not worth paying.)

Be sure to upload your resume and be detailed about your experience. The more the search firms know about you, the more likely they can match you with appropriate opportunities.

It also helps to keep current in what’s going on in your field. If, for example, you’re a structural engineer and happen to know that a local building developer is getting sued for construction defects, you can notify your expert witness search firm about the lawsuit — and tell them how you can help.

“We have experts who will come to us and almost do business development for us,” says Rubin. “They’ll call and say, ‘I just want to let you know that these cases were filed and I could really lend my expertise here.’ That’s a great way to go.”

Kristof is the editor of SideHusl.com, an independent website that reviews moneymaking opportunities in the gig economy.