Engaging Experts
After 25 years helping litigators find the right expert witnesses, Round Table Group’s network contains some of the world’s greatest experts. On this podcast, we talk to some of them about what’s new in their field of study and their experience as expert witnesses.
Engaging Experts
Engaging with Mycologist & Mold Expert, Dr. Nicholas Money
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When scientific expertise meets the courtroom, how do complex concepts translate to juries with no specialized knowledge? Dr. Nicholas Money, a distinguished mycologist and professor of biology at Miami University, navigates this challenge regularly as an expert witness in cases involving fungal contamination.
Dr. Money's journey into legal testimony began almost twenty years ago after publishing a book about indoor mold during a surge in litigation concerning mold contamination in buildings. Since then, he's provided expert testimony for both plaintiffs and defendants in roughly equal measure, maintaining a steadfast commitment to following scientific evidence regardless of which side engages him.
The art of explaining mycology to non-scientists forms the cornerstone of Dr. Money's effectiveness as an expert witness. Drawing on his experience as an educator, he transforms complicated scientific concepts into accessible explanations without sacrificing accuracy. "Science should be accessible to the general public and members of a jury that have got no real scientific training," he emphasizes. "If I can't explain it to a very broad audience, then I failed as a teacher."
Visual aids prove particularly valuable in this translation process. Dr. Money often creates his own demonstratives—charts, tables, and photographs—to illustrate mold contamination levels and compare cases. These visual tools help bridge the gap between scientific understanding and jury comprehension, especially when dealing with invisible threats like airborne fungal spores.
For aspiring expert witnesses, Dr. Money recommends studying depositions from established experts and developing strong written report skills. The unpredictable nature of legal proceedings requires flexibility and thorough preparation, especially when facing cross-examination that might probe potential weaknesses in scientific arguments.
Whether you're an attorney working with expert witnesses or a specialist considering legal testimony, this conversation offers valuable insights into the crucial role scientific expertise plays in our legal system and how to effectively communicate complex concepts when the stakes are high.
Introduction to Dr. Nicholas Money
Speaker 1This episode is brought to you by Roundtable Group the experts on experts. We've been connecting attorneys with experts for over 30 years. Find out more at roundtablegroupcom.
Speaker 2Welcome to Engaging Experts. I'm your host, Noah Balmer, and today I'm excited to welcome Dr Nicholas Money to the show. Dr Money is a mycologist with expertise in fungal growth and development. He's a professor of biology at Miami University and a published scholar. Dr Money holds a PhD in biological sciences from the University of Exeter in the UK. Dr Money, thank you so much for joining me here today on Engaging Experts. Yeah, I'm looking forward to this conversation. Of course, let's jump into it then. You're a mycologist really of world renown. How did you first become involved in expert witnessing?
First Steps into Expert Witnessing
Speaker 3I became involved in expert witnessing after writing a book this is quite a few years ago, almost 20 years ago about indoor mold, which was a very hot topic. At that time, there was a lot of litigation associated with damage to homes caused by mold growth and also the health impact of that mold growth or putative health impact on homeowners, and so after that book was published, I began to get calls from attorneys that were representing both plaintiffs and defendants in this area of mold contamination of buildings, and so that was the first cases that I became involved with was specifically associated then with water damage in homes and mold growth, associated them with water damage in homes and mold growth, and probably a lot of listeners will have heard of toxic mold and black mold, and so my role in those cases was usually to sort of separate fact from fiction and talk about what the science really tells us about fungal contamination of buildings.
Speaker 2Yeah, that's interesting when you talk about separating fact from fiction. I peruse some of your scholarly works and it seems that you have a little bit of a reputation for some fairly controversial takes, at least at the time when some of them were published, and I wanted to hear what it's like being a little bit on the edge of new developments in your field. Is that something that you're impeached on the stand about? Do people say, hey, you know, Dr Money has some pretty crazy ideas? This isn't what, you know, most mycologists think.
Teaching Science in the Courtroom
Speaker 3Is that something that you've had to contend with? But then also, as an expert witness, I adhere very closely to the reliable scientific evidence, which is sometimes difficult to get. At that, you know, what do we really know, what don't we know, and then what is absolutely preposterous, and, I must say, in a legal setting, sometimes the claims that are made are, you know, without scientific merit and they're relatively easy to dismiss. In other cases it's more nuanced and so that's where, well, the jury has to make its decision in a juried case based on the available evidence. But yeah, that is my role as a teacher, really in the courtroom, to get at the truth such as it's known.
Speaker 2Does your work as a professor influence the manner in which you explain some of these complicated topics to juries and judges during bench trials?
Speaker 3I think that's actually what I enjoy most about this part of my professional life, and my work as a professor and a teacher and a researcher absolutely informs what I might do in the courtroom and trying to distill often quite complicated facts in a way that a jury can really grapple with these issues. That's my job and that's not for a second to suggest that I'm dumbing things down that's not the truth Juries are tasked with. You know it's a very, very difficult charge, but hopefully I can make my way through the available evidence and actually explain this to a very broad audience. If I can't, then I failed as a teacher. Science should be accessible to the general public and members of a jury that have got no real scientific training.
Speaker 2What are some of the most effective techniques for explaining some of these complex topics to laypersons or people who you have to assume are probably laypersons vis-a-vis mycology?
Speaker 3Yeah, that's a really good question. In a couple of the cases that I've dealt with recently, with which I have been involved recently, the attorneys that I worked with were very good at using graphics in the courtroom, so putting up very simple tables and pie charts and actually showing, for example, differences between. So one of the things I deal with is the level of mold contamination in a property, the number of particulates. These are fungal spores, little seed-like structures that are blowing around and actually exacerbate allergies and probably have some other health effects, and so actually showing that in a graphical form is really really helpful.
Finding Cases and Marketing Expertise
Speaker 3Sometimes there's just not that kind of time available in the courtroom to present that evidence to the jury, but it really really helps to have you know we're a visual species. It really really helps to have you know we're a visual species. It really really helps to actually show things in in that visual fashion. But otherwise I try and break things down to. I mean, there's there's usually no need to to get into the specifics of you know different latin names of different fungi that are present. But getting at the number of particles in in cases of mold contamination is really important. But using photographs to actually showing the number of particles in cases of mold contamination is really important, but using photographs to actually showing the extent of mold growth or other kinds of fungal damage that we could talk about in a property and then comparing the present case, the one that the jury is wrestling with, with some of the worst cases and sometimes that can be very powerful- of the worst cases, and sometimes that can be very powerful.
Speaker 2So these demonstratives that you use, do you produce them yourself?
Speaker 3Yes, in some cases I have done that, so that will be a part of a report that I provide to the attorneys that have engaged me. And absolutely and I think I'm pretty good at doing that because I do the same thing in the classroom for students Right Trying to explain complicated things to, hopefully, eager students, eager for information.
Speaker 2And, yeah, graphics are very, very important- I'd like to back up to when you were first getting started. Were you actively advertising or trying to become an expert witness, or did that just kind kind of fall in your lap after you published your book?
Speaker 3That actually just came, so the book was part of it and publishing popular articles. I got invited to a meeting that was dealing with mold litigation early on, so that's how this started. I've actually found I mean I would say that is actually one of the biggest challenges is actually sort of advertising one's wares, putting out a shingle. I've tried different techniques, I've got my own website and hopefully, you know people searching through you know keywords will actually find me, but that's actually quite difficult and it's interesting the way that there are a number of companies that say that they'll market the credentials of expert witnesses and so forth. These are pretty expensive services.
Speaker 3I don't find LinkedIn actually very helpful. I use LinkedIn but I get a lot of queries that are unrelated to the specifics of what I do and I think that's the issue really. Is that well with me? But also other expert witnesses, the kinds of cases that we can deal with are usually quite limited. I mean, there's not a lot of people out there that are expert witnesses in the area of fungal growth, but you know, in the few cases where that does become important in a legal setting, then you know I'm one of the people that should be contacted. So yeah, if anybody's got great suggestions there.
Speaker 2I'm up for this. Have you had any luck through expert witness referral agencies?
Speaker 3Yeah, absolutely so. Roundtable Group is certainly one that you know that's actually contacted me when attorneys are interested. So yeah, that can be very, very helpful. Again, I think it's just that the cases that you know in which I can play a useful role, it's feast or famine Some years. There's a lot of litigation going on nationally that interests me, and at other times not so much.
Speaker 2Sure, absolutely. Let's talk a little bit about those phone calls. So you receive a phone call from somebody. What is the vetting process like? Because, of course, it's not only the attorney vetting the expert witness for their experience, expertise and for how appropriate they are on the stand, their demeanor, but it's also the expert witness vetting the engagement. Is this something that I want to be a part of? So what are the sorts of questions that you like to ask and what are the sorts of questions that you like when attorneys ask?
Speaker 3Yeah. So that's a great question. Yours is a great question. We're usually trying to figure out there. Both sides are trying to figure out if there's a good fit.
Speaker 3So for me, I don't want to waste anybody's time. I certainly wouldn't charge anything for an initial consultation, zoom call or whatever for an hour to discuss the case, just to see if there's something that I might add to this. Sometimes, if there just isn't any if, for example, there haven't been measurements of there's no indoor air quality measurements that have been made and yet the plaintiffs are claiming perhaps that damaging health effects related to mold exposure Sometimes there's just not much that I can do, and so saying that up front I think saves everybody body time, and I mean the attorneys. For their side, they're also looking for this.
Speaker 3What is it that this individual can really do to aid us in this research phase, this discovery phase? Yeah, I think that's very helpful, and often you can get at that information without really learning a lot of details of the case. Often you can get at that information without really learning a lot of details of the case and you know which protects both sides. So yeah, just in general, what are we doing here, what are your expectations and then, you know, do they mesh with the kinds of expertise that I can offer?
Speaker 2Earlier you had mentioned that you were receiving calls from both plaintiff and defendant's attorneys. Mentioned that you were receiving calls from both plaintiff and defendant's attorneys. Do you find that you work roughly half and half? Do you tend to work more for one or the other side and do you have a preference?
Speaker 3Yeah, I actually sort of totted that up recently over the years that I've been doing this, and it's roughly 50-50, which is interesting. It means that I mean, and I'm happy working for either side I just, you know, I have this, I follow the evidence, show me the evidence and that's what I'll follow. I mean, I can't possibly support something, I won't support something for which there's no evidence. But you know, it's up to the attorneys to figure out what is legally supportable. That's not my job. But I'm not going to make an extreme case where the evidence is lacking. And I know a little bit about the law, right, I know a little bit about Daubert and the supreme importance of scientific evidence. What do we really?
Speaker 2know. Have you been subject to a Daubert proceeding before?
Speaker 3No, A little bit about that. So, yeah, how far can we? So here's an example of this. I'm going to go back to this indoor mold contamination, because that's often what I deal with, and there's the issue of what level of mold growth and what level of particulates in the air really represents a threat to someone's health, and that's a really complicated issue, because for a while it looked like we were moving toward all the the the experts were moving toward not me, but others in the field were moving towards some sort of federal standards for this, so that if we got a measurement above a certain level, yeah, that's something that actually is of concern and is something then that would trigger some kind of significant response, and then, obviously, some legal issues associated with that.
Speaker 3But the indoor air quality community has moved away from that, and so there are some general guidelines that we can use now. But that's a perfect example there of reasonable degree of scientific certainty. I don't know that we can really apply that, but we can show other cases in which high levels of mold growth or similar levels of mold growth have represented a concern. So I mean, I point this out to a jury we don't have federal standards in this case, we've got them for lead in drinking water. We don't have them standards. In this case, we've got them for lead in drinking water. We don't travel from fungal growth and so, yeah, that will be an example, I think prepares you, get ready to go.
Speaker 2I've had, for instance, expert witnesses who like to have coffee or like a full meal, like to exercise or want to fast. You know they have all different ideas of what gets them ready to go for a potentially contentious action. Do you have any pretrial routines?
Speaker 3Yes, and no, it's not, like you know, I'm taking any particular mushroom supplements to prepare myself for the cut and thrust in the courtroom or, as you have a command of those materials. And I'll say here I mean self-deprecating, but for good reason. I have made a mistake in the past of actually sort of underestimating the other side, and I am intellectually impressed by many attorneys that I've met that, even though they don't have an understanding of the science which I think when I was younger I thought well, you, well, I've got this covered Nobody can really attack this argument. But attorneys obviously are very good at finding weaknesses in arguments and they can actually, and so definitely on certain occasions.
Billing Structure and Quality Engagements
Speaker 3I don't know that any preparation would have really helped me, but I suppose that's important, trying to look at where are the weaknesses in one's argument, in one's deposition, Are there areas where, well, this issue of scientific certainty, well, being really really clear about what the evidence shows and what the limits of the information really are. So, yeah, I don't think there's any other ritual other than reading everything really carefully, and especially before you go in the courtroom, because that's potentially a very intimidating place for anyone, I think, or other than attorneys, I suppose, and judges, but even then, yeah, preparation.
Speaker 2Are there ways that attorneys can assist in allaying some of those potential sources of nervousness or fears going in, in other words, things like mock depositions, mock cross examinations?
Speaker 3Yeah, that's a good question. I've actually really won maybe two cases where the attorney before actually yeah, before a deposition or before a trial have actually done that. They've actually played the role of you know, they're cross-questioning me and they're asking me questions. Obviously, you see this play out in our national political sphere before a presidential debate or a candidate's debate, so that kind of preparation can be very, very useful. Often there's such a time crunch when things go to trial that there really isn't the opportunity to go there. But yeah, I think that can be very, very helpful and I suppose, especially if an attorney's really read the expert witness's report and identified some weaknesses in there, let's go back and look at this. How can we actually explain this more clearly, argue this in a more compelling fashion?
Speaker 2Let's talk about those time crunches a little bit.
Speaker 3Do you feel that typically, when you are called for an engagement, there's sufficient time for you to do your best work? In most cases that's been true. Yeah, there have been exceptions, where, I mean, some cases will run on for an extraordinary length of time you know, years before it finally actually gets to the courtroom probably always amazes people that are not involved in legal action, or not in the legal profession themselves, just how long some cases can drag out, can drag out Absolutely.
Speaker 2I've seen them go months and even years at times. You know, with with those unforeseen eventualities which which do occur for somebody like you who's also a professor who has a fairly full schedule, how do you manage your schedule when, all of a sudden, you get called and and uh, you know the the trial starts moving at a fairly rapid clip? How do you organize your schedule and time to make sure that you have enough time for everything when it wasn't something that you could have foreseen upon accepting the?
Speaker 3invitation. Yeah, that can be a challenge, I think, as so. I teach for a state university and actually we're pretty good as colleagues in covering one another's classes when you know some kind of personal issue arises. And I think the same thing, exactly the same thing, applies to needing to actually be out of state for a trial, for example. But I think I'm fairly good at multitasking sort of an overused term compartmentalizing things. Yeah, I'm going to spend this number of hours working on a report on this case, and then I'm good at separating those tasks.
Speaker 2I think. Do you use any sort of scheduling software or spreadsheets or anything to keep your life organized?
Speaker 3Nope nothing whatsoever. I'm actually terrible. I've got a. I actually I mean Google Calendar. People will look at my Google Calendar and say, boy, he doesn't do anything, but I actually still keep a paper diary and I write everything in that. I remember years ago actually traveling, and I lost that diary in an airport before a series of meetings. I don't know what happened, or maybe it it was stolen and I was absolutely floored. I mean, there was so much information written down. So I probably shouldn't be such a Luddite. I should begin to use some kind of online calendaring or get a personal what are they called a personal, then that actually arranges, organizes my life for me, yeah, Excellent, excellent.
Speaker 2Speaking of traveling, let's talk a little bit about billing schedules. Do you, for instance, do you use a non-refundable retainer? Do you have a specific travel rate? Do you do project rates hourly? How do you structure your billing? Do project?
Speaker 3rates hourly. How do you structure your billing? Yeah, good questions. So indeed, I've got a fee schedule that I provide to potential clients and that has an hourly rate for different activities. So reviewing documentation, writing actually a written report, and then actually for travel, actually a written report, and then actually for travel absolutely, and a daily rate for an engagement where travel's involved. So, yeah, all of that I would specify for a potential client and in some cases that's negotiable, Sure, reasonable In some cases. Yes, I've agreed to a retainer, so something like you know, pay me up front for 10 hours work and then, if then more work is required, then I'd begin billing on an hourly basis. But I like to think that I'm pretty flexible.
Speaker 2What are the things that lead to a quality, productive engagement that's efficient and enjoyable for all parties? How do you get off on the right foot to ensure a quality engagement?
Collaborating with Other Expert Witnesses
Speaker 3Understanding what the expectations of the law firm are is very significant, and then, for their part, understanding what my expectations would be if they engaged me. So I expect well, they'll see the fee schedule, for example, but what is it they really want from me? What kind of an analysis do they require of the situation? Is a site visit necessary? So, a lot of the cases I've mentioned mold contamination, but I've also looked at fungal contamination of products, for example, during storage, and so in some cases it's very, very useful for me, as I imagined it is, for other expert witnesses to actually visit the site. Well, that can be time consuming and costly. Is that really necessary? In some cases, it really isn't. So I'll make that case that, if you ever expect us to have me as an expert witness in the courtroom, I don't want to be asked the question well, did you ever actually examine this product yourself? You know if I've just based it on looking at photographs. Well, that can be helpful in some cases, but let's look at how limiting that also can be. So, even though it's expensive to get someone like me to, you know, go on a two day trip to actually look at a site, that can be a very, very good investment on the part of the law firm. Of course, people that have engaged the lawyers yeah, yeah, the end firm. Of course, people that have engaged the lawyers yeah, yeah, the end client. Of course, the insurance company. I've worked for insurance companies too. I think it's probably the most thing is what are your expectations?
Speaker 3The other thing for me that's really, really important is is actually understanding whether data's been collected beforehand. Do you have information that you can share with me? I can't possibly write a report based upon hearsay. I need to see some data, and so I have.
Speaker 3Indeed, in some cases, we've had an hour consultation for which I haven't billed the attorney and just said look, if you can't provide me with data, there's not much that I can do here as a scientist, but that's not always the case. Sometimes my opinion just based upon so looking at in general, looking at the health effects of mold contamination. So I'm not a medical doctor, but I've been engaged in a number of cases where I've provided information on what the scientific evidence is related to fungal, to mold exposure, related to allergy and so forth. Those have actually been some of the most rewarding cases for me, because they have also engaged a medical doctor as an expert witness and so providing my information separately from their information and an objective opinion separate from that provided by an MD, a medical doctor. That can provide a really powerful case, I think.
Speaker 2To what extent are you able to collaborate with other experts that are on the trial team?
Speaker 3So that's certainly happened in a number of cases. I mean with building damage too. I've worked with indoor air quality experts that actually collect data within the building, but they have to be doing this again. I can't be driving their work. We've got to get this separation of witnesses Forensic architects too that I've worked with so, yeah, that often is really powerful, rather than just having us. You know, there's probably a few cases in which I'd be the only expert witness involved in a case, but there have been a couple.
Speaker 2Are there any cases that stand out in your mind as being the tentpole cases of your career as an expert witness that either change something about the way that you go about expert witnessing or reinforce something that you are already doing?
Speaker 3There have been cases where expert witnesses or supposed witnesses that are supposed experts have been engaged and then it comes down to sort of a fight between these expert witnesses. Not that we're ever seeing each other in the courtroom, but it's these radically different readings of the same data, the same information, and that's been really interesting and in some cases what I have to do there is to sort of draw back before I'm sort of engaging in ad hominem attacks upon the credentials of those witnesses. I have to stick to the science. But yeah, I think those have been some of the most challenging cases and where maybe we're disagreeing, but it's a reasonable disagreement. It's a scientific disagreement about what the data suggests. So all I can do in that case is provide my opinion and it's up to the jury to actually decide. But again, it's very rarely based upon just one person. It would be crazy when one expert's view versus another. But this is based on the available evidence and, based upon my decades of experience in the field, this is what I think federal, perhaps torts versus crimes?
Speaker 2Have you worked in a variety of different venues and, if so, what are the differences for an expert witness, or are they largely the same in terms of your job?
Speaker 3I think for me they're largely the same, because the issues related to what you know fungal damage of property, mold contamination of buildings, mold exposure of children in schools and so forth the rules there, or rather the science, is going to be the same nationally, and so I've usually worked. Most of the work that I've done has been within the state of Ohio, where I live, but I have worked with attorneys that are representing clients in Illinois and California and Arizona and Nevada and so forth, because the issues really, for me don't change that much. It's advantageous to look at the laws as they apply differently from state to state, but again, in terms of the science, that's something that really does not differ regionally.
Advice for New Expert Witnesses
Speaker 2Sure. Before we wrap up, do you have any advice for expert witnesses and, in particular, newer expert witnesses or even attorneys that are working with expert witnesses?
Speaker 3It's very useful if they can get information on other cases, to actually look at the public records and look at the depositions that have been provided by expert witnesses in your field. That can be really, really informative. Also, talk to other expert witnesses in your field of interest and just ask them I mean, this has been a really interesting discussion that we've had here, but I can imagine a discussion like this with another, a younger, you know potential expert witness and actually show them it's sometimes not possible, but to show them examples of written reports, because written reports are absolutely a crucial part of what we do and there isn't really any template for this. You won't find them online and experts will differ in the way that they work on their written reports, and attorneys also will require different levels of detail. So, yeah, I think just networking is really a useful thing to be involved with. Not that I can claim that I'm particularly successful at networking, as I mentioned, with my experience with LinkedIn.
Speaker 2Sage advice. Dr Money, thank you so much for joining me here today. Thank you so much, it was a really interesting conversation and thank you, as always, to our listeners for joining us for another edition of Engaging Experts Cheers.
Speaker 1Thank you for listening to our podcast Engaging Experts. Our show notes are available on our website roundtablegroupcom.